At Studio 1a · 1a Hamilton Road, Bangor, Co. Down, BT20 4JP
Only the published dates are confirmed for this programme.
Burke and Hare: Body Snatchers, Serial Killers, Ulstermen, a touring history talk from Andrew Johnston’s Alternative Ulstours, plays Studio 1a in Bangor on Sunday, 25 October 2026, from 7:30pm to 9:30pm.
The show is a spoken word history piece rather than a conventional play, built around the notorious Burke and Hare body-snatching murders and their lesser-known Ulster connections. The booking page bills it as an Edinburgh Fringe sell-out, following back-to-back sell-out runs at the 2025 and 2026 Fringe, and tracks Burke and Hare from their Ulster origins to the Edinburgh killings of 1828 and the anatomist Dr Robert Knox who paid for the bodies. It runs two hours including an interval, with age guidance of 12 and over. This Bangor date is one stop on a wider tour, alongside a separate date at Down Arts Centre in Downpatrick later the same month. Booking runs through the venue’s own TicketSource page, where the event is hosted by Bangor Drama Club. As a spoken word piece rather than a full-cast drama, it tends to draw a different audience than Studio 1a’s regular amateur society productions, and the small scale of the venue suits the storytelling format well.
Studio 1a is on Hamilton Road in Bangor town centre, a short walk from the shopping streets and Bangor rail station, which has a direct line to Belfast. Central Avenue car park is close to the venue for anyone driving in, and regular Translink bus services also serve Bangor from across North Down and Belfast.
Studio 1a sits in the middle of Bangor, close to the seafront and marina, so a night at the show can easily be combined with a walk along the front beforehand. There is more to see in Bangor and across Co. Down.
Heading to Studio 1a in Bangor? Down has plenty more to see. Read the Bangor area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.
We do not yet have a suitable Down tour in our reviewed collection that starts locally. Use the IrelandMe tour finder to compare bookable experiences for the rest of your trip.