“The streets of Edinburgh were a flurry with campaigners, pamphleteers and naked nationalism as Scotland faced a monumental vote.”
This constitutional change is not the Scottish Referendum of 2014, but the 1707 Act of Union. The slippage is intentional. At one point, Andrew Marr even announces that: ‘[t]his is not history, this is current affairs.’ Fascinatingly, though this documentary promises (and more than delivers) a literary biography of one of Scotland’s greatest writers, James Boswell, it also doubles as one of the most compelling arguments for the preservation of the Union yet to appear on British television.
Repeatedly, Marr uses the personal relationships that constitute the life of his subject to reflect upon the Union. The first of these is Boswell’s relationship with his father. Lord Auchinleck is introduced to us as the ‘formal, austere, sober and serious’ opposite of the flamboyant Boswell. As Marr’s story progresses and Boswell leaves for London to ‘get famous, get drunk and get laid’, his guilt over abandoning his family estate and heritage sits analogous to his guilty embrace of all the pleasures of London. When Auchinleck is prompted by his son’s hedonism to inscribe the following message upon their family home, it must have surely seemed to Boswell as much the chilling admonishment of his homeland as it was his father and family: ‘This may be the back end of beyond, but if you have a sober disposition everything you need is here.’
In London Boswell found Dr Samuel Johnson, introduced to us as ‘the very embodiment of an Englishman.’ Boswell, who had gone to extraordinary lengths to finally meet London’s biggest celebrity, was keenly aware of his idol’s distaste for Scots. When introduced, Boswell quickly conceded that ‘I do indeed come from Scotland, but I can’t help it.’ Johnson replied, ‘That, sir, is what a great deal of your countrymen cannot help.’ A legendary friendship was born, with the older Johnson keen for youthful company and vigorous debate, and Boswell more than happy to ‘oil up to the great bear.’ Nevertheless, Marr reminds us that this friendship was built upon Boswell’s willingness to abandon his Scottish past for the freedoms of a British future.
As we see Johnson and Boswell’s friendship flourish we again encounter the theme of fathers and sons, with Boswell finding in his older friend a second father. When we are told of Boswell’s tantalising ambition to write a Scots dictionary it is framed as an attempt to impress both Johnson and Auchinleck, adopting the methodology of one to celebrate and preserve the language of the other. Without seeming sentimental or reductive, Marr characterises Scotland, through Boswell, as the prodigal child – keen to free itself of its historical obligations yet aware of its duty, torn between a noble national heritage and the seductions of Union. As Marr says: “Disappointed fathers and wayward sons. That is an old story, but this one is a cracker.”
Boswell is not the only case-study to be found here. Marr stresses the parallels between Boswell’s life and his own, admitting that ‘[t]his is not an altogether unfamiliar story. An ambitious young man leaving Scotland behind to make his name among the bright lights. […] I can relate to a man torn between patriotism and the excitement of the city, between the love of Scotland and the lust for London.’ This revelation makes Boswell’s tortured abandonment of his Scottish heritage all the more empathetic, and all the more painful. When Marr explains that for young Scots to find success in the big city the ‘dreaded accent had to go’, forcing pro-Union Scots to rip a national heritage from their own throats, it is impossible not to wonder about Marr’s own accent. Three centuries later, how much has really changed?
As the documentary draws to a close we find Marr penning his own diary at Boswell’s writing table. The biographer and his subject have become one, and each present the contradictory portrait of the ambitious Scotsman finding his place within the Union. Finally, as Marr reflects on the curious friendship of Boswell and Johnson, he concludes that, ultimately, they were better together: ‘This is perhaps the prime example in literature of two men, a Scot and an Englishman, who achieved far more together than they would have done had they never met.’
‘James Boswell’, episode one of Andrew Marr’s Great Scots, was first broadcast on BBC Two on August 16th 2014.