Fingask Follies

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The Fingask Follies is an annual musical revue; a show of follies conceived at Fingask Castle, Tayside, Scotland.

('Glyndebourne of the Carse')

When the King cam to Fingask
To see Sir David and his Lady,
A cod’s head weel made wi’ sauce
Took a hunder pund to mak’ it ready.

The above lines describe when the (Old) Chevalier de St. George, the Old Pretender stayed with Sir David Threipland at Fingask on the night of January 7th 1716. These days, James VIII, the ‘King’ is represented by the hundreds who come along every May to mull not cod but the inspired whims, lyrics and tunes of the likes of Sondheim, Mozart, Ovid, O'Nolan, Hammerstein, Kern, Adinsell & Grenfell, Rodgers, Auden, Larkin, Haydn, Stuart Barr, Lehár, Nicky Wood, Lehrer, Porter, Slade, Maltby & Shire, Hesketh-Hervey, Kander & Webb, Betjeman, Offenbach, Wodehouse, Herman, Schmidt, Jones, Loesser, Harnick, McGonagall, Bock, Boublil and Schönberg, di Capua, Bizet, Ayres, Goggin, Robert Purvis, Gilbert and Sullivan, Pigalle, Bernstein, Rutter, Lees-Milne, Novello, Wagner, Oakland, Weill, Purcell, Christopher Wortley, Fields & Coleman, Woolf, Dvořák & Kvapil, Jason Robert Brown, Nash and Coward.

The Follies was conceived over a decade ago during the bachelor days of Fingask’s resident maestro Andrew Threipland. Earlier Threiplands spent their winters revolting against London (and Edinburgh) or curling. The present incumbent, an economist and sometime Pembrokeshire dairy farmer and cheesemaker, finding neither the courage to revolt nor the skills required for gaming, has turned rather to the churning of tunes.

He now fills his house and topiary garden with laughter, neighbours and friends on at least a few of the long summer evenings. The show comprises two acts of 35 minutes with an hour break for supper. It is made up of a carefully spliced mish-mash of show tunes, a melange of bien pensés and a pic-nic of parody. Part tutorial, part vacation, it is a synthesis of theatrical rigour, a plethora of the fecund and the frivolous, of song, poetry, satire, action and prose. Threipland’s aim is for everyone to leave ‘humming an old tune, and thinking a new thought’.

May 2008 saw the thirteenth Follies season.

Fingask, from the south-south-east, C19th
Fingask, from the south-south-east, C19th

Starting with Ossian in September 1996, they have progressed through:

  • Moonstruck (1997);
  • Love all (Tennis, Eros & Agape) (1998);
  • My Fair Lady? from Oestrus to Ascot (1999);
  • The Framing of the Shrew or Kiss me Kate (2000);
  • Spondulics Galore! (2001);
  • Brief’s Galore (2002);
  • The Fouler Sex (2003);
  • Genes Galore (2004);
  • Facts & Fallacies (2005);
  • Crumpet! We are what we eat (2006);
  • Having a Good Time. It's Now or Never (2007); to this year's
  • Heavenley Bodies.

In ten years the Follies have grown beyond their original three-night (trois-soirée) run at their Tayside home at Fingask and have gradually spread their wings to reach this year’s total of 16 shows: eight nights at Fingask and a tour taking in venues in Edinburgh (The New Club and The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; Glasgow (The Glasgow Art Club); Aberdeen (Crimonmogate house); Dumfriesshire (Balgray); Peebles (Eastgate Theatre); Norfolk (Stradsett Hall); Hertfordshire; and London (The Polish Club).

Fingask Follies at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, May 30th 2007
Fingask Follies at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, May 30th 2007

Past venues include: Blairquhan (chez the late Jamie Hunter Blair) (2000-2005); Scone Palace (2006); Caprington Castle (Ayrshire); Fowlis Castle in Rosshire (2007); Guards' Club (2007); and Flintham in Nottinghamshire (2004).

[edit] Follies Mural

The Fingask Castle Subscription Mural at Fingask shows many of the patrons and features Follies performer Lofty Buchanan, and Helen Molchanoff, the director since 1998.

The subscription mural helps keep the Follies free of and untainted by direct state-aid. The Follies are registered as Scotch charity number 32229.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Robert Chambers, The Threiplands of Fingask, Edinburgh, 1880.
  • Rev. James M'Turk Strachan, BD, FRSA (Scot), From the Braes of the Carse, Charles Spence's Poems and Songs, 1898.
(Strachan was 48 years minister at Kilspindie & died in 1936).
  • Lawrence Melville, The Fair Land of Gowrie, William Culross & Son, Coupar Angus, 1939 (reprinted 1975), (chapter 27).
  • Country Life, July 18 1936.
  • Christie's, Fingask Castle, Rait, by Perth, April 1993.
2007: Kate Feldschreiber
2007: Kate Feldschreiber
  • David Chalmers, The Butler's Day Book 1849-1855, Everyday Life in a Scottish Castle, ed. Andrew Threipland, Perth, 1999.
  • Country Life, October 10 2006.
  • Burke's Peerage, 1851.
  • Friends of Perth & Kinross Council archive, newsletter no. 20.
  • The Threipland Papers held by Perth & Kinross. The collection comprises over 31,000 items.
  • Burke's Landed Gentry, The Kingdom of Scotland, 19th edition, Delaware, USA, 2001.
  • R. de Salis, The Threiplands and their Follies, Perth, 2007.
  • Jack Prout, Black Bob The Dandy Wonder Dog, D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. & John Leng & Co. Ltd., London, Glasgow, Manchester, Dundee, 1950. (castle is illustrated on pages 71 & 75, within the story: Clever Bob, The Dog Detective).
  • The Courier and Advertiser, Dundee, April 26, 2008, page 5. (photo of Ivan Govorkov & pupils at Fingask).
  • Vicky Jardine Patterson (& various photographers), Fun with the Fingask Follies, in Scottish Field, June 2008, pages 64-68 (includes 10 photographs).