A Toast Fae the Lassies review – Robert Burns’s women torn between seduction and outrage

Pitlochry Festival theatre
An unplanned meeting between Burns’s mother, wife and lover prompts an unsentimental reckoning for the flawed poet, enlivened with a dose of song

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.