THROUGH THE SHORTBREAD TIN to Tour Historic Scottish Venues After Edinburgh Fringe

Returning to venues across Scotland following a critically acclaimed and award-nominated Scotland-wide tour in 2025, Martin O'Connor's Through the Shortbread Tin is a poetic, poignant and playful show, performed in Scots with Gaelic songs, which explores Scottish culture, myths, history and identity.

Through the Shortbread Tin will open in Edinburgh at the Scottish Storytelling Centre as part of the Made in Scotland Programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Friday 7 August 2026. The show will then undergo a special tour to historic settings in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland. Touring to Glasgow Cathedral, Stirling Castle and Urquhart Castle (Visitor Centre) in September 2026, these performances will connect Martin O'Connor's unique dive into Scotland's history with the resonant surrounds of some of Scotland's landmark sited locations. 

Twenty years since the internationally acclaimed production of Black Watch premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Through the Shortbread Tin marks National Theatre of Scotland's 42nd production at the Edinburgh festivals, including last year's Edinburgh International Festival sell out success, Make It Happen. 

Through the Shortbread Tin is directed for this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe and tour by Joanna Bowman, whose previous productions include the award-winning Tron Theatre Company production of Escaped Alone, Doubt: A Parable (Dundee Rep) and most recently, Sweat (Citizens Theatre and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh). Joanna won the 2024 CATS Award for Best Director.

In 1760 Scottish poet James Macpherson set the world ablaze with stories of the third-century Scottish bard, Ossian. This tartan-trimmed tale of Highland history spread far and wide, capturing the imagination of thousands– but was it built on a deception?

In 2026 Scottish poet Martin O'Connor decides to revisit Macpherson's epic and begins to question his own relationship with Scottish culture. The sporrans, the stags, the shortbread – do these 'gift-shop' images of Scotland hold us back or bring us forward? What does it mean to be authentic, and is the truth sometimes better told in a lie?

Martin will be joined on stage by Josie Duncan, Iona Mairead and Mairi McGillivray, three distinctive Gaelic choral singers, singing original songs composed by Oliver Searle.

Audiences are invited to join Martin and Macpherson on an oral odyssey spanning centuries of Scottish history, exploring the myths we tell each other and the stories we tell ourselves.

Through the Shortbread Tin was nominated for Best New Play in both the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2025 and the UK Theatre Awards 2025.

Through the Shortbread Tin is part of the National Theatre of Scotland's 20th birthday programme, marking twenty years of game-changing theatre. National Theatre of Scotland is delighted to be part of the Scottish Storytelling Centre's 20th anniversary celebrations, as well by being part of their specially curated Festival Fringe programme, the centre piece of their year's anniversary offering.

BACKGROUND TO OSSIAN

In 1760 Highlander Macpherson published Fragments of Ancient Poetry to great critical and commercial acclaim. The poems were collected from oral sources around Scotland and were presented as the work of a third century bard, Ossian, soon dubbed The Homer of the North. There soon followed two other publications, Fingal and Temora, and together they set the Scottish and European literary world alight. The 'Ossian effect' soon saw a rise in interest in Scottish and Highland ways of life and an increase in tourism and cultural interest. The impact of Ossian was immediate and permanent, even if the individual poems eventually fell out of fashion. But soon after publication, debates over Ossian's aesthetic and moral 'legitimacy' surfaced, which plagued the writer and the impact and legacy of the work. 

Martin O'Connor is an award-winning theatre-maker, performer and poet from Glasgow. He is interested in exploring ideas of voice and identity through theatre and poetry, with particular interest in Scots, Gaelic and verbatim. Martin won Scots Performer of the Year Award at the Scots Language Awards 2024. 

He was granted a Gavin Wallace Fellowship in 2018, hosted by Playwrights' Studio Scotland and the Lyceum Theatre, marking the first stage in his research into James Macpherson and Ossian. 

He makes work for solo performance as well as with, and for, other people. He was the National Theatre of Scotland Writer in Residence in 2020. Previous projects include Turntable (MJ McCarthy/Red Bridge Arts), Mark of the Beast (Martin O'Connor/Platform), Togail Nàisean/ Building a Nation (Glasgow Life).

This remount of Through the Shortbread Tin is directed by Joanna Bowman. Joanna has directed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Citizens Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Tron Theatre, Dundee Rep Theatre, Perth Theatre, and Òran Mór. Previous productions include the award-winning Tron Theatre Company production of Escaped Alone, Doubt:A Parable (Dundee Rep) and most recently, Sweat (Citizens Theatre and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh). She was Associate Director of the Tron Theatre between 2022 and 2025 and is Associate Artist with the Citizens Theatre. Joanna won the 2024 CATS Award for Best Director.

The original production of Through the Shortbread Tin was directed by Lu Kemp, a theatre director and dramaturg with a distinctive reputation for her work in new writing. Lu was Artistic Director of Perth Theatre between 2016 to 2023. Her tenure was notable for supporting the creation of new work by Scottish artists and community engaged productions. As a freelance director, Lu has worked for The Citizens, The Royal Lyceum Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland, Artangel, London, The Tricycle, Almeida and The Royal Shakespeare Company. 

Josie Duncan is a folk-inspired songwriter and award-winning singer from the Isle of Lewis. Her songs have been showcased worldwide from the Hebridean Celtic Festival Opening Concert to the National Celtic Festival Australia. Josie's music features in National Theatre of Scotland's Carry Me Home – A Ferry Tale, an award-winning short film directed by Seth Hardwick, and she reprises her role from the original production of Through the Shortbread Tin in 2025.

Iona Mairead is a Gàidhlig singer from the village of Bravas on the west coast of Lewis. Iona joined the line-up of An Lanntair's Hebridean Women 2023 concert when she was just eighteen and returned to the HebCelt stage with her first solo slot last summer. She recently competed at Mòd Lochabar 2025, reaching the finals for the Traditional Gold Medal. Her debut EP, “Tog do Ghuth” (2024) pairs traditional elements of Gàidhlig song with dreamy, electronic arrangements, creating a fresh and easy listen. Iona is driven by her passion to keep the Gàidhlig language and its poetry alive, but also the potential to explore new possibilities and boundaries for contemporary Gàidhlig music.

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