IN SEARCH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

Sir Walter Scott is one of Scotland’s great historical figures. He has a huge monument on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, and the capital’s train station Waverley is named after one of his many best-selling novels. Born in 1771 in Edinburgh to a middle class family - what transformed this young lawyer into a poet, novelist and political campaigner. And why is he so little read today?

Damian Barr is an author and journalist - who has long been interested in Scott, the man, his world and his work. In this documentary he travels to the Borders, where Scott lived as a child with his grandparents, to the Trossachs - the landscape he made famous in his iconic poem - The Lady of the Lake - and to Edinburgh and Glasgow in search of the enduring legacy of Scott and his work.

Along the way Barr meets historians and experts who put Scott in a social and historical context, poets and authors who illuminate the legacy of his writing - and a tour guide and even a youtube star who recognise Scott’s lasting influence on Scotland today.