WATCH: Interview with best-selling Outlander author, Diana Gabaldon
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International award-winning author Diana Gabaldon’s appearance at Eden Court Theatre this weekend will see the author engage with her largest audience in the Highlands during her first performance in Inverness.
‘An Audience with Diana Gabaldon’ has attracted hundreds of Outlander fans to the Highland capital from around the world who snapped up tickets as soon as they went on sale in July, and bookings have continued apace since then looking set to create an Outlander phenomenon throughout the city this weekend.
We got a chance to catch up with her, ahead of the event tomorrow, to find out what she loves about Inverness, which you can watch above.
Organisers of the event, the Inverness Outlanders, are delighted to see so many fans taking the opportunity to visit the city.
Sinead Robertson, chair of the local fan group said: “Such is the worldwide enthusiasm for Outlander that we have fans coming from as far afield as the USA, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and around the UK, many visiting Inverness for the first time.
"The fans are coming to share in their passion for the books and the TV series and it’s not surprising really, because Inverness is the home of Outlander and the starting point of the 18th century storylines.”
Fans include those such as Cynthia Knapp from New York City, USA who says, “I’m an Outlander fan of the TV show and the brilliant Diana Gabaldon books. It will be my first trip to the Highlands, but Scotland has been calling out to me far longer in my dreams and love of Celtic music.”
German fan Anne Lehmann from Hamburg added, “I love the Outlander book series and have been a fan since the early nineties. I always wanted to see Diana Gabaldon again and listen to her talk about the books. I am now gladly taking the opportunity to travel to beautiful Inverness spending the weekend discovering the city and seeing Diana together with many other Outlander fans whom I have met years before.”
The books and TV series have had a considerable impact on tourism to Scotland and the Highlands with many of the attractions used in the television series adaptation of her novels seeing visitor numbers rise significantly over the years.
According to VisitScotland’s 2022 report on the ‘Impact of Outlander on Visitor Attraction Performance’, Culloden Visitor Centre has seen an increase of over 111 per cent in visitor numbers between 2014 and 2019.
The first Outlander book was published in 1991 and, as of January 2022, the nine books in the series plus several spin-off novels have been published in thirty-eight languages and sold in 114 countries. In 2014, Outlander was adapted for television by Sony Pictures Television and has become a worldwide favourite with fans from the UK and US to Australia and China.
Outlander follows the story of a married English World War II combat nurse who mysteriously travels back in time to 18th century Jacobite Scotland where she is forced to marry Scottish Highlander, Jamie Fraser, who she eventually falls in love with.
The early storylines follow the characters up to and beyond the Battle of Culloden in 1746, and the ninth book in the series ‘Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone’ is set in the US in 1779 and 1780 as the American Revolution enters its final phase. The author is currently working on writing Book Ten in the series.
Tickets for ‘An Audience with Diana Gabaldon’ at Eden Court Theatre tomorrow evening, are available from the theatre priced at £20.
