The Living Stone

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 11/8/24

 Mairi Campbell

 Mairi Campbell is still a “national treasure”! 

 Some years ago I reviewed an earlier show by Mairi Campbell at the Queen’s Hall and declared her “a national treasure”.  I’m glad to say after her superb show on Sunday I was able to reassure her that in my view she still deserves this title. Mairi is a fine traditional singer; indeed her last show traced the history and the impact of Auld Lang Syne, and brought an invitation to sing it for Barack Obama, then the US President! She is a very fine fiddle player, although the ‘fiddle’ is often a viola. She is a very good composer and had us all singing along with her concluding song in the show,  “I want to be in a  band that sounds like Jimmy Shand”.  She is too a fine narrator, taking us through the discovery of the old millstone in the earth of her ancestral home on the island of Lismore, illustrating how this connects to the past, present and, hopefully, the future of the island community. Remarkably she is a fine craftswoman, constructing on stage, from three hazel sticks from the Lismore smallholding, and two lengths of cord, a pendulum from which she hung her heavy quern stone and proceeded to make music with her viola bow, her fingers and two stones – music to which we all sang. Some would say brave, but the process was assured and effective. Clearly too a fine teacher, responding to the island community’s need for a resident band, by training the seven pupils of various ages at Lismore school, using hand me down fiddles and some innovative teaching methods.

 Finally she is a very good artist and has some 50 paintings on the theme of the stone on sale at the Storytelling Centre. They are very good. Indeed they remind me of Aboriginal art from Australia and in a way this is very appropriate because Mairi’s story is about indigenous culture, from the stone to the people to the music and the art which hold them and of course us together.

The show is directed by Kath Burlinson, with musical direction from David Gray and lovely projections by Roddy Simpson and Julia Fayngruen which bring the stone to life. But it is Mairi who really brings the stone to life. She carries it, she hugs it, she plays tunes on it and makes it speak. The show is a delight and the exhibition is very good. It’s on alternate days (odd numbered dates) at the Storytelling Centre at 5pm. Don’t miss it!