CARLOS GARDEL, who died in an air crash in Colombia in 1935, was tango music's biggest superstar. There are still many fans all over Latin America, 74 years after his death, who will tell you that "Gardel still sings better every day".
And, as far as the history books show, he had no connection with Scotland. Until, that is, one of the country's leading street theatre companies arrived on the scene to tell the impressive (if not a little tall) tale of Carlos's links with several sm
all Scottish towns - Rothesay among them.
To a combination of bemusement, amusement and bafflement, a statue of Carlos was unveiled in Guildford Square at lunchtime on Thursday by a glamorous Latin American celebrity and a small-town Scottish councillor, with a gentleman of the press, resplendent in trench coat and trilby with Press card in the hatband, recording their every move.
The story, as told by the visiting dignitaries, was that the statue commemorated Gardel's tour of Scotland in 1930, when he used funds from well-paid appearances in Glasgow and Edinburgh to subsidise small, unannounced concerts in rural venues.
And he left his mark in more ways than one: according to the magnificently-moustachioed 'Councillor Frank Patterson' - deputising for the Provost, who, he said, was in Buenos Aires to unveil a statue of Sydney Devine - in the year following Gardel's one and only visit to Bute, no fewer than 60 per cent of the baby boys born in Rothesay were named Carlos in his honour.
And with a steadily growing crowd of intrigued islanders watching on, Latin American star Irana Frump duly unveiled the statue of Gardel, with a little help from two rather burly, and not a little grumpy, workmen in the statutory Hi-Vis vests.
To further commemorate Carlos Gardel's 1930 visit, when he only ever spent 90 minutes in any of his unannounced venues, after an hour and a half the statue disappeared, as mysteriously as it had arrived, leaving more than a few locals wondering exactly what they had just witnessed.
The performance was actually the work of Mischief La-Bas, a Glasgow-based street performing arts company which has spent the 15 years since its formation "gently warping the underlay of the fabric of society" - and so true to life were the performances of the cast that we suspect more than a few of the audience may not have realised that the scene was not entirely serious...
* To find out more about the show, which is also visiting Stranraer, Dunoon, Campbeltown see www.carlosgardelinscotland.com - and for more on Carlos Gardel himself (who really was a tango superstar in Latin America in the 1930s, although we're still a touch dubious about the Scotland tour), click here.