Traverse Theatre Company to Present Iain Finlay Macleod's THE DEVIL MASTERS

Traverse Theatre Company has announced BAFTA award-winning writer Iain Finlay Macleod (Somersaults, The Pearlfisher) will return to the Traverse Theatre with his latest work, The Devil Masters.

A surrealist black comedy, The Devil Masters twists the ordinary and teases us with the extraordinary, asking what we become when we peel away the layers of class division and social decorum. Cameron Leishman and his wife Lara are two revered Edinburgh Advocates, a husband-and-wife duo who know all about rules. They know all about winning and they've been winning from day one. They have the Edinburgh New Town flat, the designer wardrobes and more fig compote than you can swing a gavel at.

John, on the other hand, presents a very different world view. Today, standing in their front room, he's playing by his own rules, Caledonian rules. With the Leishman family dog held for ransom, a tense battle of wills ensues as the lines between right and wrong are blurred and pack mentality sets in.

The Devil Masters, which will receive its World Premiere this December, is directed by award-winning Traverse Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin, designed by Anthony Lamble, with lighting and sound by Colin Grenfwell and Danny Krass, (10 - 24 December 2014). The cast features the familiar faces of John Bett and Barbara Rafferty as Cameron and Lara and Keith Fleming as John.

Orla O'Loughlin, Artistic Director comments, "It's a delight to work with Iain Finlay Macleod for the first time. It was the counterpoint between the opulence of the legal world and the lot of the homeless, and the scrutiny of who holds power and how power is employed that piqued my interest. Iain's dialogue is always very funny, very absurd. This is a black, black comedy through and through, a contemporary, Edinburgh immorality tale. It's perfect Traverse Christmas fayre."

Playwright Iain Finlay Macleod comments, "While living in Edinburgh last year, I discovered the hidden world of Advocates, a somewhat mysterious, unknown side of the city. At its core, The Devil Masters taps into the unspoken rules of behaviour and etiquette in this world, with its ever-shifting sense of morality. With many twists and turns, I like to think the audience will be kept guessing right up until the last moment."

The Devil Masters was written during Iain Finlay Macleod's time as the IASH/Traverse Fellow, an annual fellowship the Traverse Theatre offers in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh and the Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities. The play was first heard as a rehearsed reading at Write Here 2013, the Traverse New Writing Festival.