Theatre Alba

The Scotsman
Tuesday, 22nd August 2000

Charles Edward Stewart:
A Prince Without a Realm
Rating * * * *

SET in Duddingston Kirk's beautifully unmanicured gardens, A Prince Without a Realm is a reworking of the unfinished play by the late Donald Mackenzie.
The first half tells the story of Charles Edward Stewart from his arrival in Scotland to raise the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan in 1745 to the disastrous Battle of Culloden. The second half tells of his exile in France from 1748 to 1752.

The focus is the Prince's character, seen initially during the march of the Jacobite campaign and, later, against his deteriorating relationship with Clementina Walkinshaw. A thoughtful balance is maintained between the personal and the public, the intimate and the historico-political, so the play does not descend, as many do, into arid, pompous epic.

Charles - portrayed with style and sensitivity by Keith Hutcheon - emerges initially as a man with many virtues, then later as a man in decline.

As always with Theatre Alba, music, in this case specially composed by John Sampson, plays a significant role. There were lumps in many throats at the end, as a little girl planted in the ground a standard bearing the Saltire, and the moon, just on the wane, appeared above the musicians' tent.

Joy Hendry