COMING UP in 2024
7.00pm
Saturday 20th April
Duns Volunteer Hall
DUNS PLAYERS'
MURDER MYSTERY NIGHT
7.00pm
Saturday 20th April
Duns Volunteer Hall
Join us at Duns Volunteer Hall for
an unforgettable Murder Mystery evening, including delicious two-course dinner.
Witness events unfold in a gripping theatrical performance, then showcase your detective prowess as you interrogate each suspect.
Take charge as you assemble clues and make the accusations – the power is in your hands!
This is your chance to be the prosecution, the defence, the jury…. even the judge, as you finally nail the murder culprit.
Tickets £22.50, including dinner.
Licensed bar will be provided.
Please email admin@aheartforduns.org if you have any specific dietary requirements.
Duns Players at DunsPlayFest 2024
April 26 - May 4, Duns Volunteer Hall:
The Monk of St Anthony
7.30pm Wednesday 1st May
Duns Volunteer Hall
Performed as part of DunsPlayFest
It's the mid C16th and the Edinburgh port of Leith is under siege from English troops fighting French soliders who are protecting the city's Catholic population from Protestant oppression.
As the nightly bombardment rages, a monk steals out of the friary of St Anthony, seeking the comfort of the Ship Inn and the discreet hospitality of its landlord, David Wemyss. Concealed beneath his habit is a bag of money and gold rings he's earned for giving the last rites to two mortally wounded French soliders.
As the claret flows, the monk confides to David the source of his riches, before succumbing to the wine in a deep sleep. Out on the street the landlord hears a call for a priest to shrive a dying sinner and, recognising an opportunity to make rich pickings, disguises himself in the monk's habit and sets out to answer the call ...
The Monk of St Anthony is a riotous romp of mistaken identity and comeuppance, as a pub landlord in a borrowed monk's habit is hounded through the streets of Edinburgh, both by Catholics kidnapping him for religious duties and a Protestant mob baying for his blood.
How will he get back to the Ship Inn? And how will the real monk get home without any trousers?
Adapted for the stage from Wilson's Tales of the Borders by Robert Sproul-Cran, directed by Alex Watson and performed by Duns Players.
Duns Players' Borderlands plays for DunsPlayFest 2024:
The Fatal Misjudgement
By Carol Robson
4pm Saturday 27 April
Duns Volunteer Hall
Performed as part of DunsPlayFest
Following its initial success at the Duns Playfest in 2023, by popular request, Carol Robson has extended this story of the political machinations swirling around the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots in England from 1569 - 87.
The original short play examined the interplay between Mary and William Cecil, the spymaster of Elizabeth I.
The revised play includes an examination of the relationships and motivations of Elizabeth, Cecil and Mary in the events leading up to Mary’s execution at Fotheringay in 1587. Both Mary and Elizabeth tried to circumvent the plotting and planning of their respective supporters, ultimately without success. But as their story played out, they were both propelled into key roles in the story of Great Britain. Come and immerse yourselves in the music and Court intrigues of Tudor England. And a fatal misjudgement!
Duns Players' evening Double Bill:
66 followed by Uncertain Borders
Starts 9.30pm
Thursday 2 May,
Duns Volunteer Hall
66
By Kevin Purvis
Performed as part of DunsPlayFest
The year is 1966, and Charles, a closet homosexual, is renting a bed-sitting room in an East-London house run by Mrs Cooper, an elderly prostitute.
One evening Charles returns home to find that his room has been ransacked, leading to a chain of events involving his openly homosexual, upstairs neighbour.
Running time: 30 minutes.
Features strong language, plus terminology and attitudes of the time regarding homosexuality.
Themes include violence and suicide.
Suggested viewing age 16+.
Uncertain Borders
By Craig Knight
Performed as part of DunsPlayFest
Welcome! Your seat to Uncertain Borders is confirmed.
A lecture that highlights that most mysterious, paradoxical, but inevitable trip that awaits everybody. Together, we will delve into the science of the paranormal, testing the religious beliefs and superstitions that have shaped this world, the one to come, and the unsettling boundary we must cross between the two . What really does happen on that journey? Come and find out. Learn things you may not want to know.
Running time: 20/25 minutes.
Dark, very dark humour. A deliberately iconoclastic piece.
The blatant dissection of – what, to some, may be strong - religious beliefs. The undermining of accepted tropes with a, hopefully, sleep-disturbing conversation, delivered by an increasingly sinister figure.