FLORA – A NEW MUSICAL
Pavilion Theatre
★★★
“visually stunning, perfectly capturing the bleak Island coast”
Flora, a new musical about the life of Scottish heroine Flora MacDonald, promises to be a triumphant, epic retelling of her life and story beyond her famed accomplishment. There are certainly glimmers of it in this production, but this is a tonally inconsistent show which feels like it tries to pull together too many elements that don’t quite match. Directed by Stasi Schaeffer, this show is a great place to start with reclaiming the story of Flora’s famous life.
The show, as the title denotes, is all about the life of Flora MacDonald. We start with the most famed part of her story: her journey of helping to smuggle Bonnie Price Charlie to the Isle of Skye in an attempt to evade government troops following the Battle of Culloden. The musical goes on to tell the story of the rest of her life: her marriage, children, emigration to North America and troubles with the American Revolutionary Way, and her eventual return to Skye. The story is told through two Floras: Flora Junior (Karen Fishwick) who we follow as she lives out her tale, and Flora Senior (Annie Grace) who is narrating her various trials and adventures.
The entire show, not only the songs, is told through rhyme. Perhaps this is to emulate the celtic storytelling of the show, perhaps not. Unfortunately the impressiveness of the feat does not carry through to the effectiveness of the writing. By building themselves such a rigid structure to work in throughout, the words of Belle Jones and John Kielty often realise themselves with messy partial rhymes and poor scansion of rhythm. That said, for all that some of the words were scrappy, it was incredible and much needed to hear so much Gaelic spoken in such a large scale production.
The music is pleasant and joyous, and excels in its trad arrangements and use of actor-musicians. Indeed, it is always impressive to see actors playing their instruments as well as talking, walking, singing and dancing. It was incredibly effective during the ceilidh scenes to have the actors holding their instruments, but the ‘pit’ section of the stage next to the main set felt messy and sometimes the instruments were holding back from the physical storytelling of the actors. The strongest song in the show, where the two Floras sing a duet together about their imminent return home, stood out in its simplicity. The lyrics here were beautiful, and the melody quietly triumphant. This being near the end left a lasting impression with us of the best of the show.
The set (Frances Collier) was visually stunning, perfectly capturing the bleak Island coast. The costuming (Jennie Lööf) of the two Floras was effective in its quiet mirroring, however for a show that was predominantly period costuming some elements felt out of place (I don’t think they made skinny Levi’s jeans in the 1700s…). The lighting (Benny Goodman), like the set, captured the tone of the show and weaved in wonderfully with the storytelling.
For a show all about one woman, and a very well known one at that, this show required a strong lead to carry its weight: and it delivered. Karen Fishwick provided a detailed, determined and layered performance of Flora. She excelled at providing a clear path through some muddled writing, and her voice was at once tenderly soft and strong when needed. The ensemble did well in backing her up, and altogether provided perfectly consistent support.
The show clearly has a great deal of strength to it, but it strikes me as a show which has not had enough time to gestate and come together cleanly. It does well in allowing us as an audience to experience more of Flora’s life than we ever may have heard of, but as a musical it needs some work.
FLORA – A NEW MUSICAL
Pavilion Theatre
Reviewed on 26th March 2026
by Kathryn McQueen
Photography by Ewen Weatherspoon
