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Press Releases
Scottish stars celebrate Burns with BBC Scotland
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A star-studded Scottish cast is to star in No Holds Bard, a new BBC Scotland 60-minute comedy mocumentary celebrating next year's 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns.
Filming over the next few weeks, No Holds Bard will feature the talents of Ashley Jensen, Bill Paterson, Denis Lawson, Ford Kiernan, Greg Hemphill, Paul Higgins, Laura Fraser, Ron Donachie, Katy Murphy and Forbes Masson.
Alan Tyler, Head of Entertainment at BBC Scotland, said today: "We are delighted to have attracted this fantastic array of Scottish stars to the cast of No Holds Bard.
"Many of them have worked with BBC Scotland before, and it feels great to welcome them back home to star in this modern comic tale.
"Robert Burns is a fantastic and unique part of Scotland's heritage. BBC Scotland will be doing a lot to celebrate the man and his works in 2009 and we are delighted that this affectionate tale will form a part of that."
No Holds Bard follows the lives of five people as they prepare to vie for the 2009 Cup O'Kindness – the trophy awarded to the champion in Burns recital.
This contemporary comedy captures the ups and downs of each participant's progress as the pressure intensifies, the poems are recited and the champion is crowned.
Held in Alloway, the birthplace of Burns himself, this prestigious competition is the centrepiece of the annual celebrations devoted to the Bard's immortal memory.
And this year it may prove memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Amongst the competitors are:
 Hayley Braid, a 12-year-old with a determined mum, Isobel (Ashley Jensen) and a batty granny
Struan Robertson (Paul Higgins), the official representative of the Dumfries Burns Society, headed by tyrannical president Miekel McMiekel (Denis Lawson) and aided by bickering cohorts Cronie Cameron (Ford Kiernan) and Cronie McKay (Forbes Masson)
An English couple, the naïve and enthusiastic Paula Pickford (Felicity Montagu) and her husband Boyd (Vincent Franklin), who have recently settled in Scotland.
The forgetful and slow-witted Robert Lauchlan (Greg Hemphill), a gardener at the Burns Cottage tourist attraction
Stevie Kerr, prison inmate, serial womaniser and protégé of rehabilitation therapist Sarah Rutherford (Laura Fraser).
No Holds Bard is written by Simon Carlyle and Gregor Sharp, directed by Brian Kelly, and produced by Jack Docherty. The Executive Producer is Alan Tyler.
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