Secret Wrapped in Lead

Saicrets? Aye. We hae saicrets.

Leadhills, August 1803. Dorothy Wordsworth seeks shelter in a humble lodging house and discovers something no outsider was ever meant to see.

Accompanying her famous brother on a bracing tour of Scotland, she’s eager to collect blood-curdling myths, legends and curiosities. The poisonous Grey Glen, where animals run mad and miners convulse, fascinates her as much as the progressive library they’ve travelled so far to visit.

But as her landlady rants and the curfew bell tolls, Dorothy realises things beyond imagination are unburying themselves. If she listens closely, this place will give up its dark secrets. From Martin Travers, the award-winning writer of Scarfed for Lifeand The Kids are Alt Right, comes the magical and mysterious Secret Wrapped in Lead, an unmissable piece of Scots language theatre.

This edition was published to coincide with the Braw Clan tour in July 2023.

Martin Travers is an award-winning playwright based in Lanark, Scotland. He is a founding member of Braw Clan, the Scots Language Theatre Company. His play Secret Wrapped in Lead, inspired by Dorothy Wordsworth’s visit to Leadhills in South Lanarkshire in 1803, was Braw Clan’s first professional production and toured venues throughout Clydesdale in July 2023. His award-winning play Scarfed for Life is studied in all Glasgow secondary schools and his play The Kids Are Alt Right about teenagers becoming radicalised online was launched as a national secondary schools’ resource by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland in autumn 2023. Martin’s punk play, written for the WAC Ensemble (Scotland’s first professionally supported Care Experienced theatre group) won the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Play for Young Audiences in 2022.