SIR Walter Scott's most famous character is taking centre stage at Abbotsford this summer.

The Story of Rob Roy on Stage and Screen is a new exhibition charting the afterlife of the Highland hero.

Throughout this year the Abbotsford Trust is celebrating the bicentenary of Scott’s great Scottish novel, Rob Roy, published on December 31, 1817.

Of all his works, this was the novel that had an extraordinary afterlife on stage – over half of all the theatrical adaptations of Scott’s works were based on Rob Roy, with almost 1,000 production runs in the nineteenth century alone.

Only William Shakespeare has surpassed this level of success - a far easier feat for a playwright than for a novelist.

Kirsty Archer-Thompson, collections and interpretation manager for the Abbotsford Trust told the Border Telegraph: "Although Abbotsford itself remains a wonderful time capsule, it’s always exciting to explore Sir Walter Scott’s legacy in popular culture to show how the story continues, and that has been one of the great joys of putting together this exhibition."

Rob Roy MacGregor, the operatic drama, was so successful on stage that it became known as Scotland’s national play, changing the fortunes of Edinburgh Theatre Royal and creating celebrities such as the Scottish actor Charles Mackay.

His version of the character Baillie Nicol Jarvie was so sought after it is thought to be the origin of the Victorian phrase ‘the real Mackay'.

On seeing Mackay’s performance in Rob Roy Macgregor at Edinburgh’s Theatre Royal in 1821, Sir Walter Scott himself proclaimed: "I am not sure I ever saw anything in my life possessing so much truth and comic effect at the same time: he is completely the personage of the drama, the purse-proud consequential magistrate, humane and irritable in the same moment, and the true Scotsman in every turn of thought and action; his variety of feelings towards Rob Roy, whom he likes, and fears, and despises, and admires, and pities all at once, is exceedingly well expressed.

"In short, I never saw a part better sustained."

Theatrical adaptations of Scott’s Waverley Novels made it possible for Scottish actors to make a reliable living in their home country for the first time, and to play a variety of more complex and rewarding roles.

Rob Roy was also to become the ‘royal play’, and was performed for King George IV on the last night of his hugely important state visit to Scotland in 1822 – the first visit by a reigning monarch in over 150 years.

Ms Archer-Thomson added: "It’s easy to forget just how extraordinarily famous Scott was, both in his own lifetime and into the Victorian period.

"His books were devoured by the public and it’s no exaggeration to say that the popular appetite for his own particular brand of Scotland’s reimagined past reached fever pitch in the nineteenth century.

"Theatre performances became a key channel through which this brand was circulated.

"What happens next, with the birth of cinema and the impact of the First World War, marks another cultural shift, and although this half of the story represents a wane in Scott’s popularity, I think it’s fascinating to juxtapose this against the success of the previous century.

"This is a story about a rise and fall, warts and all.”

The exhibition, which runs until November, will also explore the household familiarity of those actors and actresses performing parts in the play, demonstrating the enthusiasm for capturing/re-enacting famous scenes on the stage shared by both adults and children alike, through theatrical tinsel prints and toy theatre productions.

This social aspect of the story, told through loan items from the Victoria and Albert Museum, complements the original music, playbills and engravings on display.

Almost 100 years later in 1911, Rob Roy was the first three-reel film feature produced in Britain, and the first film shot on location in Scotland.

It was proudly based on Scott’s novel and shot using stage actors who had performed the same roles to great critical acclaim in theatres.

The Abbotsford exhibition explores the dramatic story behind this early production and finds out why later filmmakers, such as Walt Disney Productions, made the decision to purposefully distance themselves from Scott’s novel.

Visitors will be able to see the costume worn by the actor Brian Cox in MGM’s Rob Roy (1995), and a copy of the script for Walt Disney’s Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue (1953).