Sister Boniface Mysteries: "Are Ye Dancin'?" (BBC Studios, Britbox, 2015)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2026 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Saturday, January 31) I watched two of the quirky British mystery shows that abound on the PBS schedule, Sister Boniface Mysteries and Father Brown, and then stayed on KPBS for a tribute show to Johnny Cash, We Walk the Line: A Celebration of the Music of Johnny Cash. The Sister Boniface Mysteries episode was called “Are Ya Dancin’?” and took place at a public event in Scotland that was supposed to be a folk music festival but was secretly a surprise birthday party for the widow Mrs. Clam (Belinda Lang). The surprise party was being put on by Mrs. Clam’s sister and her husband in an effort to bring her out of her shell. Alas, a middle-aged man named John Adams (John Mackay) gets murdered and the main suspects are his son Jimmy (Joseph Prowen) and his daughter’s boyfriend, aspiring musician Callum McIntyre (the incredibly cute Calum Gulvin, whom I have vague memories of having seen before on previous BBC productions). John has a confrontation with Callum in which he smashes Callum’s newly purchased 12-string electric guitar, which Callum is counting on to make it big as a rock star so he can marry the daughter, Maggie Adams (Alyth Ross). We also learn via a flashback that Jimmy wasn’t John’s biological son, but the product of an extra-relational liaison between John’s wife and another man. Later we find that [spoiler alert!] Maggie Adams was the actual killer; she and her dad had a confrontation over his treatment of Callum and she stabbed him with the ceremonial knife included in the kilts a number of the menfolk at the festival/party are wearing. Sister Boniface (Lorna Watson) figures all this out with her skills as a forensic scientist (at a time when most real-life police departments had little to no understanding of forensic science), and the police gallantly allow Maggie to perform the song she was scheduled to sing at Mrs. Clam’s party before they take her into custody.