WOULD Bonnie Prince Charlie have paid the Skye bridge toll? Fervent Jacobites claim he would have refused such an imposition, while the more pragmatic say the Prince would have saved himself at any price.

We will never know the choice he would have made, but when the Young Pretender of the Invisible Bouncers theatre company retraced his steps yesterday there was no question. Like Prince Charles Edward Stuart had done 250 years before him, Buzzby MacMillan crossed to the island in a rowing boat.

The rest of the cast and crew had no option but to take the bridge when travelling between their scheduled performances at Broadford, Plockton, Staffin, and Raasay.

However, they refused to pay the bridge toll, to show solidarity with local people and tourists who have protested since the bridge opened.

The Bouncers are a Highland-based professional theatre company who are taking their latest production, Adieu, to many small communities directly affected by the failure of the Jacobite uprising and the horrors of its aftermath.

Their 16-date tour includes retracing Bonny Prince Charlie's flight before his escape to exile from Loch nan Uamh on September 19, 1746.

Inevitably that brought them into close association with the new rebellion going on in the Highlands, and Invisible Bouncers' director Alastair McDonald revealed that, being very much a theatre company ``of the people'', they had little option but to join the fight.