Charles Barron
Playwright
A fight to the death with grizzly bears, a voyage on board the Discovery, interrogation by a Tibetan secret service man, attack by Japanese fighter planes and smuggling tea out of China. These are just some of the adventures of a group of five men whose jobs may sound unexciting but which led each of them into extreme danger. They were plant hunters, plunging into uncharted territory in search of new species to send home to Britain. All of them were Scottish and all of them featured in a play by the Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
Written by Aberdeen-based playwright Charles Barron, the play – Wild Specimens – was performed not in the theatre itself but in the Scottish Plant Collectors’ Garden within the theatre grounds. The Garden has a number of intriguing new acting areas, including an amphitheatre, a Chinese pagoda and a magnificent wooden Canadian pavilion. The actors led the audience around all five of the arenas as they re-enacted the lives of the five plant hunters featured in the play.
Archibald Menzies discovered the Monkey Puzzle Tree; David Douglas had the ubiquitous Douglas fir named after him; George Forrest was pursued by the warrior priests of China; Robert Fortune disguised himself as a Chinaman to enter the Forbidden City; George Sherriff interrupted his plant-collecting to command an anti-aircraft battery during World War II.
Written by Aberdeen-
Archibald Menzies discovered the Monkey Puzzle Tree; David Douglas had the ubiquitous Douglas fir named after him; George Forrest was pursued by the warrior priests of China; Robert Fortune disguised himself as a Chinaman to enter the Forbidden City; George Sherriff interrupted his plant-
Wild Specimens