Douglas Henshall reveals why he's been touched by, and amazed at the scope of, the writing of his fellow countryman Robert Burns.
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My mother bought a copy of Burns poetry in Ayrshire in 1965, which is the book that I ended up with. So, in 1965 she would have been pregnant with me, so I guess that’s when her influence started in it and I think that’s probably when I must have heard her reading.
One of the greatest things about him was the scope of his work, the breadth of his work. Shakespeare wrote sonnets mainly on love, Burns managed to kind of go through just about every single spectre of everyday life, from politics to the church, to love, to fantasy and I don’t know whether it’s idealistic or romantic, but I don’t care ‘cause  I am.
He reads a verse from A Man's A Man For A' That by Robert Burns 1795 :

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might --
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.


I  think it’s such an ambitious poem because I think it’s difficult to write about some kind of universal brotherhood without it seeming either sentimental or naive, but he manages to just kind of  pull it off as just an earnest cry or wish that somehow we’ll manage to find a common bond among us.
In Tam O’Shanter that ranks along with A Midsummer Night’s Dream just for imagination and humour and managing to scare small kids, as I was when I was a small kid. I think those two things are kind of great ballads of his, but it’s compassion and it’s kind of bawdy wit.

I think I found solace in some of his poems when around the time when my Mum died. I read a lot of his work around then and found a deal of comfort in it.
And also he writes very well about kind of failures and heartbroken relationships and there’s been times when I’ve kind of looked at his work at times like that ‘cause I think his success and lack of success with women, I’ve often found that I’ve had something in common with that!
BBC May 2009 - Watch video here.