Collaborating with award-winning poet Simon Armitage, Told by an Idiot, National Theatre of Scotland and The Lyceum, Edinburgh in association with Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse present a wildly comic and provocative piece of music theatre.

Edinburgh; a cold town on the edge of civilisation, in very much the Year of Our Lord, 1696. The church has spies everywhere. Here, you keep your counsel and choose your words with care … unless you are Thomas Aikenhead – a loud-mouthed, smart-arsed and likeable student at the university. A man in the wrong place at absolutely the wrong time … trouble is brewing for Thomas.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (S.G Tallentyre)

A rich vein of black humour is exploded in this account of the last person in Britain to be executed for blasphemy. Using Told by an Idiot’s internationally celebrated theatrical invention, we glimpse into Edinburgh’s dark past to reveal this true story with universal resonance.

A riotous and unsettling drama which swings between 1696 and the present day, I Am Thomas is performed with an original live score.