Caledonia

Archive Listings for Caledonia

T02090792799 (KINGSED10) World PremiereProducer National Theatre of Scotland. Director Anthony Neilson. Design Peter Mackintosh. Lighting Chahine Yavroyan. Sound Nick Sagar. Director Anna Morrissey (movement). Performer Paul Blair. Performer Tam Dean Burn. Performer Cliff Burnett. Performer David Carlyle. Performer Alan Francis. Performer Frances Grey. Performer Paul Higgins. Performer Neil McKinven. Performer Robert Melling. Performer Pidgeon. Performer Morna Young.
21 Aug 10 to 26 Aug 10	King's Theatre, Edinburgh :: V601 listing details L01822788854
13 Aug 10 to 16 Aug 10	Eden Court Theatre, Inverness :: V626 listing details L0579072835

Details

Play :: Caledonia is a story of greed, euphoria and mass delusion. It is the story of a small, poor country mistaking itself for a big, rich country. William Paterson was a financial adventurer who in the late 1600’s planned to found a Scottish colony in Darien on the isthmus of Panama in Central America and turn Scotland, one of the poorest nations in Europe, into a prosperous colonial power. He invited the public to invest and within weeks a vast proportion of the nation's wealth had been subscribed. Distance, disease and a naive optimism all played their part in this ruinous episode. Within a few years, the Scots - demoralised and impoverished - gave up their nation's independent status and signed the 1707 Treaty of Union with England. Inspired by documents, journals, letters, songs and poems of the period, celebrated playwright and satirist Alistair Beaton has created a work that is both a tribute to heroic ambition and a darkly witty take on the deceptions and self-deceptions of rich and poor alike.

Author

Alistair Beaton