Fingask Follies

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, , 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, & Kvapil, Jason Robert Brown, Nash and Coward.
The Follies were instituted by the current owner of Fingask Castle, 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.

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);
*Heavenley Bodies" (2008);
*"Animal Farm" (2009); and this year's show:
*"Eau, yes!" (2010)
In 14 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).
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).
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.

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