Big Burns Supper 2014
The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-08592, in the name of Joan McAlpine, on congratulations to the Big Burns Supper 2014. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates the Big Burns Supper festival on its programme of music, carnival, cabaret and theatre that will take place in Dumfries from 24 to 26 January 2014; understands that the Big Burns Supper was established in 2012 and is now the world’s biggest Burns Night celebration; further understands that the 2014 festival will be the biggest to date, attracting visitors from Scotland, the UK and across the world; welcomes the varied programme of entertainment featuring international as well as local talent including Big Country, the Spanish-born singer, Concha Buika, and Cammy Black from Dumfries and Galloway; notes that 2014 is the Year of Homecoming and that the Big Burns Supper will celebrate this with a lantern procession that will include 2,000 people, and congratulates everyone who has contributed to the festival’s increasing success, including the organising team lead by Graham Main, Creative Scotland, Homecoming Scotland, Winter Festivals Burns Night, 8020 and Dumfries and Galloway Council.
17:49
Dumfriesshire, in the South Scotland region that I represent, was home to the great Robert Burns, whose birthday we celebrate this Saturday and in whose honour I am wearing a red, red rose. Burns lived and died in Dumfries, where he worked as an exciseman, and his modest sandstone house is preserved as a museum. The farmhouse he built at Ellisland also still stands, and you can view the stove where his wife Jean baked bread, and the orchard that gave him his first commercial crop of apples. You can drink reaming swats in the Globe inn, his favourite howff, and sit fast by an ingle in his favourite chair, then move upstairs to inspect the verse he scratched on the window panes. You can visit the lovely St Michael’s kirk, where Burns is buried and where his mausoleum has been carefully restored. The town is alive with his spirit.
The Big Burns Supper festival, which opens on Friday, takes full advantage of that unique backdrop. On Saturday, the town centre will host a free homecoming carnival: a community parade involving 2,000 people. They will paint the town tartan to the sound of the Manchester School of Samba, because the Big Burns Supper is nothing if not eclectic on an epic scale.
The festival, which will last until late Sunday night, brings Burns back into the heart of the community he loved and, indeed, into the hearts of the people who live there. It is at once populist and intellectual, international and hyperlocal. The Big Burns Supper does not treat Burns as a relic to be preserved—something that another Dumfriesshire poet, Hugh MacDiarmid, often criticised—and it is not frightened to have fun with Burns, or even to move on to different artistic ground altogether. Burns was an innovator and an internationalist, as well as a proud Scot, and the Big Burns Supper festival reflects all those facets of his personality.
We all know that he loved a good night out, which is absolutely guaranteed this weekend. In fact, if you go to bigburnssupper.com before midnight tomorrow, you can take advantage of a two-for-one ticket deal. I can only give a taste of the programme. The bard would have enjoyed the burlesque Burns supper, which will feature haggis, neeps and—I presume—bonnie lassies in corsets, and maybe a few bonnie laddies in corsets, too, and will take place in the atmospheric spiegeltent. By contrast, Dick Gaughan, Big Country, the Hackney Colliery Band, local rock legend Cammy Black, and Concha Buika, the Miami based Cuban-flamenco singer, offer a taste of the broad range of musicians. There is cutting-edge contemporary drama such as “Blood Orange” and “If These Spasms Could Speak”, which are counterpointed by a midnight roller disco with the Doonhame Derby Dolls.
On the streets there will be magic wherever you turn. “Occupy Dumfries” comprises 12 unique pieces of pop-up art, including “Big Burn” by the Stove artists collective, “Soap Opera” by Dumfries and Galloway youth theatre and the tantalising “Naughty @ Night” by Justin Hyslop. “Give your Tongue a Birl” will allow members of the public to speak of their passion for Burns and Scotland. There will be a Burns tea dance with soup and Dundee cake, and award-winning poets Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson will explore the poet’s favourite pastime with “Freedom an’ Whisky Ganthegither!” in the Coach and Horses pub on Whitesands.
Five thousand Burns suppers will be eaten over the weekend. They include the ten-minute version served up in the Globe by manager Jane Brown, who is currently president of the World Burns Federation. Furry festival mascot Harry the Haggis will host special suppers for kids, with haggis sausage and chips, so even picky seven-year-olds can participate.
The festival director and founder, Graham Main, grew up in the council scheme of Lochside on the west bank of the Nith and studied at the then Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He became a successful actor, playwright, director and festival organiser in Ireland, London and Spain. Then he came home, and what an impact that homecoming has made. However, the Big Burns Supper is also a collective community achievement. The strength of the festival team is testament to the talent in Dumfries, and the number of local volunteers reflects its strong sense of neighbourliness. I am delighted to have two members of that team, Andrew and Margaret Wood, in the gallery this evening.
I cannot list everyone who makes the festival a success, but I should mention the sponsors: 8020, EventScotland, Creative Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway Council, the Holywood Trust and homecoming Scotland. So many local businesses offer support that I cannot list them all.
I also thank the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs for the encouragement that she has given to the festival. Her presence at the Big Burns Supper in 2011 and 2012 was a huge boost to morale, and was particularly appreciated given her divided loyalties as an Ayrshire lass. She will know that Dumfries is a nominee for one of this year’s creative place awards, which will be announced on 29 January. The work of the Big Burns Supper team has played a vital role in achieving that nomination.
The creativity does not stop in January. The Big Burns Supper team contributes to creativity in Dumfries throughout the year, with the work of Electric Theatre’s workshop, Dumfries and Galloway youth theatre, the Dumfries community choir, the Stove, the spring fling, the Dumfries and Galloway arts festival and much more.
I said that Dumfries brims with living history, but the Big Burns Supper is about the future of our culture as well as the past, which is why it gives me great pleasure to pay tribute to it tonight.
17:55
I thank Joan McAlpine for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is welcome and I am delighted to take part in it.
Having lived and worked in either Ayrshire or Dumfries and Galloway for all but four years of my life, I have probably attended more than my fair share of Burns suppers over the years. Almost without exception, I have genuinely and thoroughly enjoyed them, despite the fact that—other members will know this feeling—I usually have to sing for the supper.
However, there is something about the traditional annual get-together in memory of the bard that engenders a real sense of camaraderie and warmth. Whether it is attended by 30 people or 300, a Burns supper has a unique atmosphere that cannot be imitated and has remained unrivalled since the idea’s inception.
That said, I would very much like to have been given £1 for every time somebody has said to me at a Burns supper that their club’s biggest problem is getting the young folk interested. The fact that probably more Burns suppers are being held now than at any other time in history might suggest that that problem can be, and has been, overcome. However, it should not hide the fact that the traditional view of how Burns’s life and works could be celebrated was ripe for challenge and had probably remained unchallenged for too long.
Step forward Graham Main, the director of the festival, and the Big Burns Supper—an initiative that grew with the year of creative Scotland in 2012—and we have that challenge to tradition in a nutshell. From the outset, its impact has been immense, and I cannot better the description of its aims and vision that appears on the Big Burns Supper’s website, which states:
“rather than the idea that to be at a Burns Supper you had to have a degree in Scots Literature, our festival is about coming together to celebrate with your friends, pals and visitors around Burns Night.”
The Big Burns Supper is, as Joan McAlpine described, an arts festival with a big community ethos and drive behind it that now involves hundreds of participants and thousands of attendees at more than 100 different shows in more than 50 different venues. In just three short years, it has become the world’s biggest Burns night celebration and has achieved that by, in its own words, embracing
“the fresh, the different and diverse”
and incorporating those qualities into everything that it does. It does so quite brilliantly.
In doing so, it has captured and captivated a new audience, as well as the traditional Burns fraternity, in a refreshing and invigorating manner. One has only to meet Graham Main and any of his team once to be overcome and overwhelmed by their enthusiasm for what the event can offer—not only over the three days of the Big Burns Supper itself, but through the related community projects that continue and build throughout the year right up to the festival’s three-day finale.
I wish the Big Burns Supper nothing but continued success in 2014 and beyond as part of the wonderful arts and cultural mix that is Dumfries and Galloway. However, I do so with a slight degree of personal trepidation this year. When Graham Main invited me by email to attend the launch event in the spiegeltent in Dumfries tomorrow evening, he asked me whether he was correct in thinking that I used to play the guitar. Stupidly, I replied that I did indeed, although not very well, and he replied, “Oh good. I have an idea.” I have heard no more, so I am looking forward to tomorrow night’s event with distinctly mixed feelings, because Graham tends to bring such things home to roost. That apart, I have no doubt that the Big Burns Supper 2014 will be a resounding success.
17:59
Mr Fergusson is being modest about his singing and guitar-playing abilities, as any of us who have heard him can testify.
I, too, congratulate Joan McAlpine on securing the debate. There have been motions in the past noting and congratulating the Big Burns Supper and it is good to have a debate on this occasion. Unfortunately, the start of this year’s festival coincides with tomorrow’s Cowdenbeath by-election and, therefore, the attendance at the debate is probably smaller than it might otherwise have been.
I am pleased to celebrate a winter festival that, although it is relatively new, is rapidly becoming a fixture in the Dumfries and Galloway calendar.
It is, of course, part of a series of cultural and heritage events across the region all year, which include the common ridings and the ridings of the marches in the summer. Dumfries and Galloway has a rich and diverse environmental, historical and cultural offering for visitors and for those of us who have the great fortune to live there. As Joan McAlpine said, Robert Burns was one of those fortunate enough to live in Dumfries, spending the last years of his life there and writing some of his most famous compositions. Where more appropriate to have a winter festival built around a Burns supper?
The event was created, as we have heard, by Doonhamer Graham Main, who has a huge passion for both the arts and his native town. It is equally enthusiastically supported by his board members, chaired by Maureen Farrell, and by his staff. I, too, welcome to the chamber Councillor and Mrs Wood, who have been involved with the event over the years.
The festival includes a mixture of comedy, music, theatre and variations on the Burns supper. I also noticed the burlesque Burns supper. The bard might have wanted to be there, but I was not quite sure that it was appropriate for me to attend it. I should also mention in passing that I attended a performance of “Blood Orange”, a play written by Mr Main and a number of young people in the form of a Greek tragedy. It is a hard-hitting but absolutely excellent piece of theatre and I can well recommend it.
An important component of the event is community participation, with well-known performers from other parts of Scotland, such as Fred MacAulay and Big Country, and it is also a showcase for local talent and for up-and-coming young performers. As we have heard, there is also a large community event. This year, it is a carnival procession, so I will be keeping my fingers crossed. We had a lot of snow last year; I hope that the weather is not too unkind this year.
I notice that this year’s programme boasts a festival fringe, with several recent Scottish films such as “The Angels’ Share” and “Sunshine on Leith” being shown at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre to coincide with the festival events. Brian Taylor is even holding a big debate on Friday; I do not know whether that is part of the festival or just a coincidence.
The Spiegeltent made its appearance for the first time last year and was very much enjoyed. I enjoyed it myself and was extremely pleased to see it being erected again at the Loreburn car park on Monday.
The Big Burns Supper has attracted support from a number of organisations, particularly from Creative Scotland, which has been supportive, and from Dumfries and Galloway council. It benefits Dumfries and the surrounding area through increased footfall at venues. It brings visitors into town and the festival website contains links to several local hotels. I hope that visiting performers and visiting audience members will come back to not only future Big Burns Suppers but Dumfries and Galloway at other times of the year, for other festivals and to enjoy the range of activities that we have on offer, including wildlife, leisure, mountain biking, walking and sailing. It also offers a good weekend of entertainment to local people.
Coinciding as it does with Burns night, the Big Burns Supper marks the beginning of the Burns supper season, which can last for more than a month, as we all know. We in Scotland have to be grateful to Robert Burns for many things, one of which is the fact that he was born in January. The commemoration of his birth means that we have something to celebrate once Christmas and Hogmanay are over. Winter festivals such as the Big Burns Supper give us something to look forward to and enjoy during the dark days of midwinter. I very much hope that it goes from strength to strength.
18:03
I am delighted to support the debate this evening and I congratulate my colleague Joan McAlpine on bringing it to the chamber. I add my congratulations to the sponsors and the team that have made everything possible.
There is a Scottish quotation that I heard recently, which goes as follows:
At the First Supper
The guests were but one:
A maiden was the hostess,
The guest her son.
That has no application even remotely to the Big Burns Supper event in Dumfries this weekend, because there will be hundreds of guests.
Every Burns supper has its great moments, none greater than the immortal memory, of which I have to do three this year, but people who have attended the Big Burns Supper in the past, and those who will attend this year, will retain memories of the Dumfries event, which I believe will be large and successful.
I live but 1 mile from the cottage where Burns was born in Alloway. Although we in Ayr like to embrace him as a son of Ayr, he is much more than that. I say that in the present tense because we believe that he still lives. He is a son of not only Ayrshire, but Galloway. He is not just a great Scot, poet and lyricist, but so much more, all of which is recognised at home and by the Scottish diaspora and our many international friends.
That wider celebration will, as other members have said, be encapsulated in the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries this weekend, and it should be acknowledged. The life that breathed the singing and the painting of Scots words, great music and national ambition and aspiration sadly breathed its last in Dumfries in July 1796. Burns was buried initially, as was mentioned, in a far corner of St Michael’s church; he was then moved to his final location in the Burns mausoleum in 1815.
He was posthumously given the freedom of the town of Dumfries, in which burgh he had already been given recognition in 1787. Who knows: perhaps his life will be celebrated not only by those who come from all the pairts—internationally, from all over the world—to Dumfries this weekend, but perhaps by some of his 600 descendants, some of whom will probably not even know that they are descended from his 12 children.
I sit on the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee and the director of homecoming Scotland recently presented to us a whole array of exciting events that will take place in Scotland this year. Many have been overshadowed by the Commonwealth games and the Ryder cup, but the Big Burns Supper will not be. It promises to be a magnificent event, and the organisers should be congratulated on making it a must in Scotland’s calendar, not just in this and previous years but, it is hoped, every year from now on.
I hope, and I am sure, that all the elements—from “Le Haggis”, which I have discussed with our French colleague Christian Allard, to Hamish the haggis and “Torch Song”—will be warmly welcomed to Dumfries this weekend, along with the many other activities that Joan McAlpine mentioned. There is, of course, the main lantern procession too. I hope that those who attend the event this weekend will, like Burns, love life and live it to the full.
To all those who will love and enjoy the event, I say this in anticipation of a safe weekend:
“Love makes the world go round? ... Whisky makes it go round twice as fast.”
18:07
I congratulate Joan McAlpine on bringing the debate to the chamber. The Big Burns Supper is an important event, not only because it is part of homecoming, and not only because Dumfries and Galloway is celebrating it, but because it is part and parcel of our history, which is important.
We sometimes forget how important history is to people. The value of the history and culture of any nation are often underestimated. Joan McAlpine will be pleased to know that the city of Nuremberg in Germany, which is twinned with Glasgow, celebrates with a Burns supper every year. She will also be pleased to know that the event is a sell-out every year—in fact, the tickets for the Burns supper are normally sold out a year ahead of time, so if you want a ticket, it is almost the case that somebody has to die before one can get one.
I am considering the possibility of holding a Burns supper in Lahore, which is Glasgow’s twin city in Pakistan. One reason is that the Burns supper now offers so much more than it used to. We can now get halal haggis and vegetarian haggis, which opens doors for more people to participate in and enjoy the event fully. As a councillor, I have enjoyed haggis in Glasgow city chambers. It has been either vegetarian or halal, but nevertheless I have been able to enjoy the full ambience of the Burns supper, which is important.
We need to take an international perspective. There are a lot of expatriates living all over the world, and most of them celebrate with Burns supper events. However, those celebrations are not joined up, and I am keen that we should help them to do that. It is important that our overseas cousins in places such as North America, Australia and New Zealand join up not only among themselves but somehow with us in Scotland through our tourism industry, so that we can participate with them and they can participate with us. Then it will become a homecoming in more ways than one. When the homecoming was first launched, I thought that it was a wonderful idea, but that homecoming should not only be about people from overseas coming to Scotland, but about a homecoming for Scots who are here. It is important that we realise that we have many diverse cultures in Scotland; we tend not to enjoy them to the full.
I have always felt that Burns suppers are celebrated too much by small organised groups and are not open to the general public—to my mind, that aspect has always been missing. The festival in Dumfries at the weekend does that—it reaches out to the community, which is wonderful. I am keen for us to do more of that, so I wish it the best of success.
I also wish the local council success, because it is a huge undertaking and responsibility to organise such events. They are not easy to organise. I am sure that, these days when we are strapped for cash, it can be difficult for people to decide to hold such events. However, the festival brings home the reality that we care about our culture and that we want to promote and celebrate it. We should open it up to everyone and not just to a few chosen ones. I wish the event the very best and I hope that it will encourage others to follow suit.
18:11
I, too, congratulate Joan McAlpine on an excellent debate, which I was keen to speak in. I am not sure whether members are aware of this but, at the time of Burns, the landlady in the Globe inn was a certain Mrs Hyslop. Although I recently visited the Rovers Return, I have no desire for a career change at this point. I congratulate all those who are involved in the Big Burns Supper festival, including the thousands of people from local communities who have worked so hard with partners on the organising team to help build the momentum towards the festival and to make it such a huge success.
I have been lucky enough to attend the festival on two occasions. The spectacular and moving light and sound lantern performance over the River Nith will stay with me for ever. What a celebration of Dumfries and its history and heritage it is. In particular, it connects thousands of young people with their community. The programme is world class. I am delighted that it has gone from strength to strength and is attracting global recognition and drawing enthusiastic audiences from near and far.
As Joan McAlpine set out, the Big Burns Supper festival takes a fresh and innovative look at what celebrating Burns night is all about—music, family, food, friends, laughter and fun. Its success is evidenced by the fact that audiences have risen to nearly 20,000. Dumfries, which is the perfect setting for the festival, should be proud of an event that has also reached out to many local people through a number of related projects that are aimed at developing communities.
As we heard, for the festival’s third year, the diverse programme includes Big Country, Mull Historical Society, Robert Softley and Fred MacAulay. Elaine Murray set out the range of art forms that are now part and parcel of the festival. There are other inspirational acts and cultural activities, all celebrating the life and works of Robert Burns. For younger Burns fans, I am pleased that the 2014 festival again offers a fantastic range of attractions for a family audience, including a children’s Burns supper, a tea dance and a carnival.
The Big Burns Supper festival offers something for everyone and is a great example of how partners and communities from across the country are coming together to celebrate Burns and to harness the potential of his legacy to boost culture and creativity. I emphasise the continued significance of Robert Burns to Scotland, as one of our most important cultural sons, and encourage everyone here to learn about and celebrate his life and works as we bring to a close our 2013-14 winter festivals programme, and particularly as we celebrate our second year of homecoming.
Events that are taking place as part of Scotland’s winter festivals programme to celebrate Burns night include “Burns: Life of a Poet” in Inverness and, in South Ayrshire, the Robert Burns humanitarian award, which is now in its 13th year. This year, we have invested £350,000 in the winter festivals to deliver 19 events across Scotland, which will give visitors a real taste of our nation’s distinct traditions and contemporary culture. A vibrant winter event programme brings together people from all over the world to celebrate Scotland’s modern culture and traditions through the best of Scottish music, arts, food and drink, innovation and entertainment. St Andrew’s day, hogmanay and Burns night all make a significant contribution to our culture and economy.
Of course, the celebrations are not restricted to Scotland’s shores. It is estimated that around 50 million people across the globe can claim Scottish ancestry, and many of those Scots and Scots at heart, wherever they are in the world, will celebrate with Scottish traditions on St Andrew’s day, hogmanay and Burns night, from Beijing to Rio and Toronto to Brisbane, to name only a few places. I recommend that Hanzala Malik looks at the Scottish Government’s website, where we demonstrate how we are linking up with communities and trying to connect communities across the globe in a celebration of Burns.
Why do Scots and people across the world continue to celebrate Burns in the 21st century? Robert Burns’s poetry, songs, sentiment and commentary on the condition of humankind touched people the world over, and continue to do so. I was interested to hear Chic Brodie speak about Burns in the present tense, because I think that Burns is still of us, which is why we automatically talk about him being with us in the present tense. The messages and observations in his poetry and songs are as relevant and heartfelt today as they were 250 years ago.
Burns was a humanitarian and an internationalist who spoke of the universal condition. “A Man’s a Man for a’ that” resounded through the chamber at the opening of the Scottish Parliament as an anthem precisely because of that. Robert Burns embraced the nation’s unique landscape, culture and people and, importantly, the Scots language, in order to celebrate Scotland in poem and song. That is why, all over the world, Scots, people of Scots heritage and those who simply share an affinity with Burns and his homeland, come together, year after year, to honour this great man with family and friends. Alex Fergusson reflected on that in his speech. On Saturday night, I was at Camelon bowling club, and the warmth, the wit and the performances were worthy of the bard, in the spirit of which Alex Fergusson spoke.
The story, poetry, art and heritage of Robert Burns is part of the attraction of Scotland, and year after year visitors flock to find out more about him. His emotional response to old Scotia, his homeland, has particular resonance this year because hogmanay 2013 also marked the start of the second year of homecoming—a year of celebrations in which we will welcome the world to our great country and celebrate the very best of Scotland’s food and drink, our unique active and natural resources and our world-renowned creativity, culture and ancestral heritage.
This year, Scotland plays host to the Ryder cup, the Commonwealth games and the MTV Europe awards, which will be broadcast to nearly 700 million households through MTV’s global network of channels. Homecoming Scotland 2014 will extend the benefits and opportunities that are offered by those major events through a year-long co-ordinated programme of events that will celebrate our assets. For example, on Saturday, to celebrate homecoming Scotland, we will see the signature Celtic Connections festival hosting one of its biggest-ever concerts—Celtic Connections international Burns night, when a stellar line-up of home-grown talent and international acts will take to the stage at the Hydro in Glasgow.
With such a varied and world-class events programme in 2014, alongside our existing tourism credentials, it is no surprise that Lonely Planet’s best in travel list for 2014 names Scotland as the third-best country to visit this year, citing all the events that I have mentioned.
I have no doubt that 2014 will be an extraordinary year for Scotland, boosted by exceptional events such as the Big Burns Supper festival. As Burns himself wrote,
“From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad”.
The Big Burns Supper festival does it 21st century style, and what style it does it with.
Meeting closed at 18:19.