The Guardian 31 August 2025

Safe to say that Agnes Broun, Jean Armour and the woman known only as Clarinda never met at the grave of Robert Burns to commemorate his birthday. Even safer to say that had mother, wife and upper-class lover had such a meeting, they would not have spent the time filling each other in on their relationship with the great poet.

No matter. The contrivance of John Binnie’s play, set on 25 January with an eye to performances on Burns Nights to come, paves the way for what really makes this show tick: an attractive compilation of favourite songs, sweetly sung by Alyson Orr (Agnes), Stephanie Cremona (Jean) and Eden Barrie (Clarinda), following the pretty harmonies of Orr’s arrangements and the simple acoustic guitar accompaniment of Chris Coxon. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).