“Flora” at Eden Court, Inverness
Mark Brown in the Scottish Highlands
★★★★☆
24 March 2026
Flora MacDonald is the Jacobite hero who smuggled Charles Edward Stuart (aka “Bonnie Prince Charlie”) from Benbecula “over the sea to Skye” following the routing of his forces at Culloden in 1746. Her fame rests to a considerable degree on “The Skye Boat Song”, a folkloric ditty that is still known widely in Scotland and beyond.
It is fitting, therefore, that this new theatrical account of her life should be a stage musical. Played on a two-level set that resembles a modern day Scottish harbour (complete with painted iron railings and plastic floats for fishing nets), the piece (which runs to two-hours-and-fifteen minutes, including interval) portrays a dramatic and tempestuous life that spanned 68 years and two continents.
MacDonald’s life experience – which included owning a plantation in North Carolina with her husband Allan MacDonald, and finding herself on the wrong side of the American Revolution – went far beyond the single act of courage that has defined her legacy. This piece – which was created by Belle Jones (words and lyrics), AJ Robertson (music) and John Kielty (music and additional lyrics), and directed by Stasi Schaeffer – weaves together MacDonald’s biography and the major historical events that shaped her life.
It also laces an enriching thread of Gaelic – in song and spoken word – through its otherwise English-language script. In the midst of a universally fine ensemble of actor-musicians and actor-singers, Annie Grace (who narrates the action as Flora Senior) sings and speaks the Gaelic beautifully.
The excellent Karen Fishwick plays the central figure of Flora Junior with a tremendous sense of her character’s determination and energy. It is a sympathetic portrayal of a woman of strong temperament, even if Jones’s play leaves it to the audience to judge her politics and principles.
Hailing from Skye – where she was born into minor gentry – MacDonald’s Jacobite cause was not that of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (as would be taken up a few decades later by Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns), but of a quest to replace the Protestant Hanoverian monarchy in London with the dynasty of the Catholic House of Stuart.
Whilst the play makes a stop to acknowledge the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, it says too little about Flora and Allan MacDonald’s considerable involvement in the ownership of and trade in enslaved African people. More is said about Allan’s miscalculated support for the British Crown against George Washington’s revolutionary forces (and the personal catastrophe visited upon Flora when rapacious Patriot soldiers arrived on her plantation).
The telling of these stories – and others – is achieved with a sense of balance and momentum (even if Jones’s penchant for rhyme – in dialogue as well as lyrics – proves a little restrictive and clunky from time to time). The music – which is played live on stage – carries, as it should, a strong element of traditional Scottish music. However, it ventures beyond Caledonian composition, into music that reflects the American folk tradition and, even, has a whiff of Argentine tango.
The songbook ebbs and flows between plaintive reflection and high-tempo songs of action. The latter strand includes almost onomatopoeic numbers – such as Over the Sea – which seem to encapsulate in sound the feelings and actions of the characters.
Marvellous as Fishwick is, director Schaeffer and producer Genesis Theatre Productions should be commended for assembling a top-class cast that bristles with musical theatre talent. The cast list – which includes Stephen Clyde, Alan McHugh, Lana Pheutan and Sally Swanson – reads like a Who’s Who of Scottish acting talent.
Lawrence Boothman’s hilarious playing of Charles Edward Stuart – as a camp, ungrateful coward – testifies to how unworthy the would-be king was of the commitment and sacrifice his name inspired. David Rankine is equally superb in the roles of Allan MacDonald and the brave, debonair Irish Jacobite Felix O’Neill.
There is much about Flora MacDonald’s life and times that deserves to be told. This musical tells it with admirable skill and brio.
At Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, 26-28 March: https://www.genesistheatreproductions.co.uk/
