The Flyting: A 400-Year Old Slagging Match

Those familiar with Whose lunch Is It Anyway?, Stu & Garry’s long-running afternoon improv show, will know the delight that these two take in shredding each other in front of a live audience.  This week sees that on-stage rivalry taken to a new level as they appear in Mary King's Close, Edinburgh, to perform The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, a ribald 400-year old battle of Scottish wits.

Garry Dobson, playing the part of Kennedy, is excited at the prospect. “It wasn’t something I had heard of before we were approached to do it. Now I feel it’s something we should have known about all along, because it’s amazing.”

Flyting is an ancient poetic form that consists of two parties hurling abuse at each other. Combine that with the traditional Scottish genius for swearing and you have a hit. “These two guys were courtiers of James IV,” says Garry, who’s been undergoing a crash course in the history of the Flyting over the last few weeks. “What the records show is that there was a one-page letter from Dunbar to Kennedy slagging him off, which is then replied to in a similar fashion by Kennedy. Somehow this evolves into a public spectacle, kind of like a modern ‘Yo mamma so fat’ rap battle, or a roasting."

It was an event that revolutionised 16th century swearing, often cited as the first occasion on which certain words had appeared in print. “I’m not sure if it’s the first time that the F-word or C-word are used in print. He calls me ‘cuntbittin’ and I get to call him a ‘wan fuckit dwarf’. I spend three stanzas telling him how much he shat over the side of a boat because he was seasick. But there are also classical allusions and they’re not shy about using Latin. As a performer one of the challenges is figuring out whether this is highbrow or lowbrow.”

The history of the Flyting is not entirely clear, and key mystery is whether this was a good natured double-act or if there was genuine animosity between the two. Academics have debated this for centuries, but I asked Garry what impression he got from reading it.

“It’s hard to tell. There is an inherent Scottish thing that you’ll slag a friend to his face but if you really don’t like someone you’ll say it behind his back. Some of the stuff in this is pretty brutal and I just can’t imagine saying it to someone you don’t like.”

And is there a winner?

Garry laughs. “That’s definitely one for the academics. Kennedy does get to go second and can refer back to some of the things Dunbar said. For me, as Kennedy, I do get a sense of winning. He gets the last word and it’s 250 lines long. But it's a debate for the scholars.

“When I started this, I met with a lady from the university who helped me understand it. She said, “Oh, please tell me you’re playing Kennedy”. I said I was and she said, “Thank goodness, I always pictured him as having long, straggly hair and a jaundiced complexion.” So at last my not looking too healthy has made someone happy.”

There is a palpable excitement from those involved in staging this event: the academics; the organisers of the Previously… festival; Stu & Garry themselves. Garry can hardly contain himself as he talks about the upcoming performance and a proprosed performance in Stirling some time soon. “It’s a joy to do this, for what some people think might be the first performance in 400 years. I already want to do it again. It shouldn’t be another 400 years before the next performance. It’s a wonderful thing.”