The Wallace

“What is this Scotland? Why does it elude me?
Her armies conquered, her strengths taken,
Her king in exile, and her nobles tamed,
And one man at large. One man.”

At 27, William Wallace is a little known outlaw. Within a year, having defeated an English army at the battle of Falkirk, he is appointed guardian of Scotland. Barely five years later, he is captured by the English army and put on trial in London as the most wanted man in the British Isles.

The Wallace tells the story of William Wallace’s radicalisation as an ordinary man is transformed through the love of his country into a leader and warrior, and offers a unique interpretation of his final days – culminating in an explosive and devastating confrontation with the King of England, Edward I.

Using a richly poetic vernacular Scots, The Wallace was written in 1960, and originally premiered in the Assembly Hall at the Edinburgh Festival, Sydney Goodsir Smith’s spectacular retelling of William Wallace’s final years receives its English premiere at the Finborough Theatre. Goodsir Smith presents his version of a life previously dramatised in Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart.