Celebrity DJ Edith Bowman is to return to Alloway this year for the second edition of an online Burns Night event.

Edith hosted the inaugural online Burns Big Night In on Saturday, January 23, 2021 after the Covid pandemic meant the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway was unable to hold its usual programme of birthday celebrations for Scotland’s national Bard.

More than 2,600 viewers from around the globe tuned into the live broadcast from Burns Cottage for an event featuring a mix of music, song and poetry, as well as conversation about Robert Burns’s life, work and legacy.

It was such a success that the National Trust for Scotland, who look after the venue have decided to host the event in Alloway again this year.

This time round, Edith’s inviting the public to record themselves reciting To A Mouse, one of Robert Burns’s most popular poems.

A selection of recordings will be edited together into a video to be shown on the night to an audience of Burns fans from around the world.

Edith Bowman has started the ball rolling, recording the famous opening lines: “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!”

Edith said: “I am so pleased to be heading back to Alloway for an even bigger and better Burns Big Night In for 2022.

“It’s really exciting to be able to offer Burns fans from all over the globe the chance to connect with the birthplace of the Bard, and to add their performance to proceedings for this celebration.”

Caroline Smith, National Trust for Scotland Operations Manager at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum said: “Burns remains so important to Scotland’s heritage, culture and identity, even as we prepare to mark his 263rd birthday.

“As the place where Burns was born and spent his early years, we know not only that it shaped who he was as an artist, but that he loved it – the landscape, the people, the folklore. The National Trust for Scotland is proud to play its part in protecting this place which is of such importance to our national Bard and all who love and admire him, all over the world.”

To A Mouse videos should be submitted as landscape MP4s to bbni@luxevents.co.uk by Wednesday, January 12.