Meet the face behind Lady Alba Dr Zara Gladman

Dr Zara Gladman’s portrayal of ‘Lady Alba’ in a pro-independence parody video has been a hit online.

While the rest of the nation was tucking into their Christmas dinners, Dr Zara Gladman was recording the ‘Lady Alba’ parody video that would go viral two months later.

Belting out pro-independence lyrics isn’t how many people would choose to spend their Christmas, but Zara’s efforts have been rewarded with an online hit.

The 28-year-old Public Engagement Officer at Glasgow Science Festival, transformed Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ into a pro-independence anthem that has attracted 46,000 views on YouTube and counting.

And it all started on Christmas Day.

Zara explained: “I was having Christmas with my family and I took advantage of my brother Steven’s recording suite.

“I recorded the song after Christmas dinner.

“Then I spent the next two months working on the video.”

The Sunday Post revealed last month that her ‘Lady Alba’ parodyhad attractedthousands of views of the video online.

WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT

But incredibily, this isn’t even Zara’s biggest hit.

Zara, who has a PhD in Ecology, first made waves online with another tongue-in-cheek take on a pop song Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’ which featured a drunken night out in Glasgow.

You can view that video here Last Friday Night but be warned, there is explicit content.

And after enjoying success with that effort, she decided to take on the independence referendum.

She said: “I was having a laugh with some friends, trying to come up with songs that could relate to the referendum.

“We ended up coming up with an entire playlist of possible songs.

“One of my friends suggested Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ and that’s how it started.”

Zara and a band of friends headed to Westminster, Stirling Castle, and Holyrood to film the video, which includes dancers wearing masks of prominent politicians.

She then uploaded the video to YouTube and watched in delight as tens of thousands flocked to watch.

“My day job is to get people interested in science in unusual ways, and I wanted to translate that to the referendum,” she said.

“Some people will be switched off to the debate because of the way it is being presented, and I wanted to introduce it to them in a different way.

“Hopefully it will get them thinking about the debate, and at the very least, have a laugh at the video.

“I’m really pleased with how well the video has done.

“I can’t promise there’ll be a Lady Alba follow-up, but I like doing the videos as a hobby, so it probably won’t be the last one!”

The ‘Lady Alba’ parody led to tens of thousands of people logging on to watch the cheeky video.

And as well as attracting attention from cyber-nats and #indyref followers on Twitter and Facebook, it has also garnered interest from some unlikely quarters.

Michael Hance, Director of the Scots Language Centre, said: “It’s the language that Zara Gladman uses that has attracted the attention of the Scots Language Centre.

“We are hugely excited that a young comedian working online is using the Scots language so happily.

“The video has attracted tens of thousands of views and hundreds of likes on youtube. It shows that Scots is still a powerful medium for discussing complex topics like the referendum.

“Scots has the capacity to debunk the kind of language we hear from politicians. There’s a ‘ye cannae kid us’ part of the Scots psyche that responds really well to this kind of thing.”

The Scots Language Centre’s website has a section dedicated to political and protest songs.

According to experts at the Scots Language Centre, Gladman’s video follows in the tradition of Scots comedy shows like ‘Chewin the Fat’ where parody forms a core part of the Scots comedy genre.

“One of the most popular Chewin the Fat sketches featured Scots dialect speaking Star Trek characters. This is very much in that tradition.” says Hance.

There has also been a long history of Scots language political song in Scotland stretching all the way back to Burns.

In the 1960s anti-nuclear weapons campaigners were singing ‘We dinnae want Polaris’ to the tune of the children’s nursery rhyme, The Big Ship Sails.

“We were worried that the days of using Scots as a medium for expressing political ideas was past but this Lady Gaga parody shows that the Scots language still resonates with Scottish audiences.”

Time will tell whether the Lady Alba parody plays any part in the referendum debate or not.

But either way, it has brought some light relief to a fiercely fought subject.