Ayrshire's Horsehead Theatre performed their adaptation of Chris Brookmyre’s comedy thriller A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil at Stirling’s Tolbooth Theatre as part of the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival at the weekend.

With author Brookmyre present to see the play for the first time, the event was a sellout - and went down a storm with the audience.

Adapted and directed by Kilwinning’s Caroline Lewis, the play also saw her as part of the six strong cast.

It starts with a double murder, which reunited the classmates of St Elizabeth Primary School after 20 years.

Featuring very strong language - at least as strong as you would expect from a school playground - much of the play is told in flashback as the cast recreate their younger selves from P1 to secondary school.

With classroom jokers and psychotic teachers, it’s all set to a great 70s and 80’s soundtrack - with some hilarious dance routines too.

Each playing numerous roles, the cast excelled themselves and received rapturous applause from the crime fan audience.

The play was first performed, with the blessing of Chris Brookmyre, at Irvine’s Harbour Arts Centre and this year had a sellout run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Brookmyre met the cast at the end of the show and confided that he found the event “emotional” as much of the script was based on events he wrote about his own childhood.

Kudos to Caroline, the cast and the crew for such an excellent piece of work, which is well worthy of a national tour.

The cast were Caroline Lewis, Billy McLean, Brian McKigen, Nicola Carfrae, Tyree McClung and Steven Duffy, with Julia Warner as stage manager, Hannah Westwater as technician