SCIENCE and murder cling together in a dance of death in Edinburgh between 1827 and 1828 in Murder, Just What The Doctor Ordered.

The story comes alive at Lochgelly Centre on Friday May 24.

Sixteen people are slaughtered by Burke and Hare while Dr Robert Knox, scientist, doctor and anatomist supreme, waits in Surgeons Square to buy bodies for the sake of advancing medical knowledge, no questions asked.

Murder will out and a price must be paid, even by the anatomist supreme.

The Burke and Hare murders were a series of 16 killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.

Edinburgh was a leading European centre of anatomical study in the early 19th century, in a time when the demand for cadavers led to a shortfall in legal supply. The shortage of corpses led to an increase in body snatching by what were known as "resurrection men". When a lodger in Hare's house died, Hare turned to his friend Burke for advice and they decided to sell the body to Knox. They received what was, for them, the generous sum of £7 10s!