The one woman Robert Burns truly loved was the only woman he couldn’t have: Nancy Macelhose. When she flees to Jamaica to be reconciled to her husband, Burns devises a plan to fake his own death and win her back.

 

It’s like

Hamilton meets Cyrano de Bergerac

 

Synopsis

Burns and Nancy Macelhose have an unconsummated romance. To avoid scandal and preserve her income, she agrees to cut all ties to Burns and sail to Jamaica to reconcile with her husband. She takes the handwritten copy of Ae Fond Kiss with her – given to her by Burns as a parting gift.  

 

Disillusioned by Edinburgh and with his money and his health running out, Burns considers a job on a slave plantation with a mind to win Nancy back.

 

Walking the Ayrshire coast, he comes across the drowned corpse of an unknown smuggler and sees the opportunity he craves. He places the body in his bed and pays a friend to orchestrate the ultimate deceit.

 

He arrives in Jamaica under his new identity, but quickly falls ill. He is nursed to health by

Cubah Cornwallis, an emancipated slave and renowned doctress. Knowing he is Scottish, but unaware of who he really is, she reveals the encouragement she found in the work of a Scottish poet who championed the case of the poor and the slave. As he recovers, she sings  over him the verses she knows from A man's a man for a' that. They soon develop a relationship of equals that surprises them both.

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Burns gets well enough to seek out Nancy, only to discover she had left years before – her husband having taken a slave girl as wife.

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Burns channels his anger into becoming an advocate of the slave revolts on the island, writing verse to Strike the hede o’ the nobleman and stir the hairt o’ the slave.  

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Ill health overcomes him again, and as he lies dying, Cubah sings over him once more. With his final breath, he recites a stanza she's never heard, leaving her to wonder at his true identity.