Through The Shortbread Tin,  National Theatre of Scotland - video Dailymotion

The Scotsman

Through The Shortbread Tin, National Theatre of Scotland  The story of the greatest literary hoax of all time.  1760 – Scottish poet James Macpherson sets the world ablaze with stories of the third-century Scottish bard, Ossian. This tartan-trimmed tale of Highland history spreads far and wide, capturing the imagination of thousands– but is it built on deceit?  2025 – Scottish poet Martin O’Connor reads Macpherson’s epic and questions his own relationship with Scottish culture. The sporrans, the stags, the shortbread – do these ‘gift-shop’ images of Scotland hold us back or bring us forward? What does it mean to be authentic, and is the truth sometimes better told in a lie?  Through The Shortbread Tin is a brand-new show, performed in Scots with Gaelic songs, which explores Scottish culture, myths, history and identity.  Join Martin and Macpherson on an oral odyssey spanning centuries of Scottish history, exploring the myths we tell each other and the stories we tell ourselves. Because it takes a lot ae imagination tae tell a true story.  Written and performed by Martin O’Connor. Directed by Lu Kemp.  Through the Shortbread Tin is a brand-new show, performed in Scots with Gaelic songs, which explores Scottish culture, myths, history, and identity. The play tells the story of Scottish poet James Macpherson who set the world ablaze in 1760 with tales of third-century Scottish bard Ossian, and examines if the story was built on deceit and the lasting impact it has had on Scottish culture. Written and performed by Martin O’Connor, who was named Scots Performer of the Year in the 2024 Scots Language Awards Directed by Lu Kemp Features three distinctive Gaelic choral singers, Josie Duncan, Claire Frances MacNeil and Màiri Morrison, who will be singing original songs composed by Oliver Searle, and explores Gaelic connections to Scottish culture. Opening in Melrose before touring to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ullapool, Stornoway, Portree, Dornie, Cumbernauld, Oban, Cove, Lerwick and Inverness.

Transcript

00:00Imagine that you could just replace one myth with another.

00:04Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that?

00:07Imagine that, eh?

00:09Choir singing

00:33My name is Martin O'Connor and I'm the writer and performer of Through the Shortbread Tin.

00:37The show is a journey through Scottish history.

00:40We look at contemporary times, we look at historical times,

00:44including the story of James Macpherson from the 1700s,

00:47who published a book of Oisín poetry,

00:50which he claimed was a long lost find, but maybe he made the whole thing up.

00:55We poke fun at different Scottish stereotypes and Scottish clichés,

01:00as well as using them to help us maybe understand our cultural identity a wee bit.

01:05And we celebrate some of those things as well.

01:08I'm performing and telling the story, but there are three singers with me,

01:12Mari Morrison, Claire Francis McNeill and Josie Duncan, who are singing in Gaelic.

01:16And those songs are taken directly from the tales of Oisín that James Macpherson wrote in English,

01:22but we've translated them back into Gaelic.

01:24I hope that people come to see the play and maybe ask some questions about Scottish history

01:29and Scottish culture that maybe we haven't learned.

01:32We're not the best at talking about Scottish history or learning about Scottish history when we're young

01:37and there are a lot of questions and provocations in the show.

01:39So I hope that people will start to think a wee bit more about their Scottish cultural identity.

01:45But we also tell a modern story about Scotland today,

01:49about how we might feel about our culture today

01:51and how we might feel about the Scots and Gaelic language as well.

01:54I think it's going to be very exciting to tour Scotland because I'm from Glasgow

01:59and this is a very Glaswegian point of view about Scotland and about the Highlands

02:03and about our oral tradition.

02:05So I think it will be really interesting to take it to some of those places

02:09where Gaelic is spoken, where Scots is spoken

02:12and maybe people might have a different experience or understanding of those things.

02:16It's 1988, it's Glasgow, a place called Pollock.

02:21It's a wee scheme on the edge of a field.

02:24It's a living room and a four-in-a-block,

02:27with pebbledash, super fresco wallpaper, the electric fire, the three-piece,

02:33and amber, and I'm ten years old.

02:38It's a big audacious take on a very interesting historical event

02:45which has been lost to public knowledge because not enough people know about James Macpherson.

02:50At the heart of this show is the question of what it is to hear or not hear

02:55and to speak or not speak the language of your own country.

02:59And so within the show it is a one-man show but it's actually a four-person show

03:03because there are three brilliant Gaelic singers

03:06who are singing original Gaelic music across the course of the show

03:11and it will be delightful.

03:13Through the Shortbread Tin we'll be touring across Scotland

03:15between the 1st of April and the 2nd of May.

03:18We are visiting venues across the breadth of the country

03:22so we will be in Ullapool, in Stornoway, in Lerwick,

03:27up in Inverness, down in Glasgow, in the borders in Melrose

03:31and in Edinburgh at the Storytelling Centre.

Through The Shortbread Tin, National Theatre of Scotland

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