Maureen Beattie returns to the stage this September

Fresh from playing the title role in Lear at Pitlochry and just before assuming

the part of the Headmistress in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for the

National Theatre of Scotland, the redoubtable Maureen Beattie will be

revisiting one of her most colourful characterisations when she portrays Mary,

Queen of Scots in a staged reading of W. Gordon Smith’s Marie of Scotland

at the historic Britannia Panopticon Music Hall at 3pm on Sunday 13th

September.

The play evokes the last two days in the life of the doomed Queen as she

awaits her execution at Fotheringhay Castle. Beattie first performed it on the

1987 Edinburgh Festival Fringe before touring to other venues in Scotland

and Spain – including a particularly notable rendition at Rothesay Castle in

Bute when a gathering storm during the final moments of the show culminated

in a crash of lightening to accompany the Queen’s last lines.

The afternoon at the Britannia Panopticon will be by way of a fundraiser for

the continued restoration of this much loved building. This year Gaynor Macfarlane will

be directing aided and abetted by stage manager, Sue Barrie. The fundraiser they

mounted last year (a staged reading of Frederic Mohr’s Acting Up) sold out.

So prospective patrons of this year’s event are advised to secure their tickets

at the earliest opportunity.

For tickets, please go to https://ticketsource.com/panopticon or click on the link on our

Events page listing.