Palm Tree Films presents Red Rose

Venue

Auditorium

Ticket prices

£10	Full Price Ticket

*subject to booking fees (except at theatre box office)

Jul 2024 21 Sun 7:30pm (doors: 6:30pm)

AD1792. Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, falls in love with an aristocrat's wife. Denounced as a republican sympathizer, four years later he is dead.

Robert Burns overcomes his upbringing as a farm labourer to become the national poet of Scotland. Love comes his way in the form of Jean Armour but his attempts at securing a happy relationship are blighted by Jean's father who disapproves of Burns. Finally, Jean and Robbie are married and Burns tries to settle down to a happy married life, but the success of his literary career brings with it many temptations and he is unable to resist the attention of the aristocratic women who fawn upon him.

Finding difficulties in supporting his growing family of children, Burns seeks work as a local tax and excise officer in the port of Dumfries as Britain is threatened by the spread of the French Revolution. He meets and falls in love with married aristocrat Maria Riddell, and he is unwittingly exposed to rumour and innuendo. Siding with the sentiments of the revolution, his republican stance provokes retaliation from the aristocracy. Walter Riddell, Maria's husband, circulates false rumours to ruin his reputation. Systematically Burns is ousted from all polite society, and reduced to poverty by his government employers. Only his wife Jean and his friend Lewars stand by him.

Burns, blighted by illness since youth, bids to ease his suffering by giving in to the cures of Doctor Maxwell, who wrongly prescribes mercury. Faced with death, Burns reaffirms his love for Maria, and comes to terms with his powerlessness to right his many affairs and the tragedy of his marriage to Jean as he fights to make sure his work is not destroyed.

The writer of the screenplay Mairi Sutherland was born in Dumfries and is therefore no stranger to the stories of Robert Burns life. She was also the producer of the film alongside the Director, Robbie Moffat. On top of writing and producing the film she also found all the real life locations, where Burns lived, worked and died.

Join us for a Q&A after the screening with Mairi Sutherland.

Theatre Royal Dumfries Burns Tour presented by the Guild of Players Dumfries. Join us for a pre-film tour of Scotland's oldest working theatre. Learn about the legacy of Robert Burns prior to the screening of Red Rose presented by Palm Tree Films.

To end the evening, Cheryl Anne Easton (Soprano) will close the event after the Q&A.

The Theatre Royal Dumfries are screening this film in partnership with Dumfries and Galloway Pensioners for Independence to mark the anniversary of his death.