Here is the film poster. Red Rose was translated into over 12 different languages including Chinese. Shown in many countries on TV, it has enjoyed screenings in Central Europe on HBO's satalite channel.
I wrote the screenplay during 1997 to 1999, but the film was not made by Palm Tree UK until 2004. As a native of the town of Dumfries I was brought up hearing the local stories about Robert Burns, which were not available in current books of the time.
SYNOPSIS
AD1792. Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, falls in love with an aristocrat's wife. Denounced as a supporter of the French Revolution, four years later he is dead.
Robert Burns overcomes his upbringing as a farm labourer to become the national poet of Scotland. Love comes his way in the form of Jean Armour but his attempts at securing a happy relationship are blighted by Jean's father who disapproves of Burns. Finally, Jean and Robbie are married and Burns tries to settle down to a happy married life, but the success of his literary career brings with it many temptations and he is unable to resist the attention of the aristocratic women who fawn upon him.
Finding difficulties in supporting his growing family of children, Burns seeks work as a local tax inspector in the port of Dumfries while Britain is threatened by the spread of the French Revolution. He falls in love with married aristocrat Maria Riddell, and through this, he is unwittingly exposed to vicious rumors about him. Siding with the sentiments of the revolution, his republican stance provokes retaliation from the aristocracy. Walter Riddell, Maria's husband, circulates false rumours to ruin his reputation. Systematically Burns is ousted from all polite society, then reduced to poverty by his government employers. Only his wife Jean and his friend Lewars stand by him.
Burns, blighted by illness since youth, bids to ease his suffering by giving in to the cures of Doctor Maxwell, who wrongly prescribes mercury. Faced with death, Burns reaffirms his love for Maria, but comes to terms with his powerlessness to right his many affairs in the face of his marriage to Jean while he fights to make sure his work is not destroyed.
Below this picture shows how he got himself into trouble.
This picture shows the reconstruction in the film of an evening at the Theatre Royal, when Robert Burns was reputed to have started a revolt because he refused to stand for the National Anthem. The audience reciprocated his jesture, by singing the C'Ira instead, the song of the French revolution.
The DVD is available to download on Amazon.com
See the trailer here in the video side bar on You Tube.com by searching the channel.
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