THE Dunnington Players are heading to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with The Three Peaks, a new play written and directed by Dunnington doctor David Mazza.

This year's successful premiere in Dunnington prompted the production team to embark on an ambitious journey to stage the show at the biggest arts festival in the world.

Billed by David as a "new drama about blisters and bereavement", the play is a walk through the lives of two groups of friends that support each other’s personal challenge to climb the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

"It started out as an idea to produce an ambitious homegrown play, which would stretch the dramatic skills of our established theatre group," says the writer-director. "The story itself came from the observation that people embark on physical challenges for all sorts of different reasons and the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk has become a secular pilgrimage."

The plot focuses on husband and wife Anna and Dennis, who are the subject of parallel connecting stories, 12 months apart, in which they share the mixed emotions of personal loss and friendships.

"Each of them, with their small group of friends, embarks on the Three Peaks challenge for very different reasons," says David. "Dennis and his friends Alan and Tony are keen to get out of a rut and kick start their New Year, while Anna is dealing with grief, supported by Bridie and Carol on her memorial walk. Yorkshire passion and humour gambol through this bitter-sweet play as the walkers battle with the elements, embrace their hip-flasks and snack their way up the Three Peaks."

The cast is divided into The Friends and The Three Peaks. In the groups of friends are David Marles's Dennis, David Hammond's Alan and Allan Sawyer's Tony , along with Helen Glendinning's Anna, Lorraine Bradshaw's Bridie and Cathryn Walder's Carol. Towering performances can be expected fromCaroline Walmsley as Pen-y-ghent, Andrew Easson as Whernside and Maria Mazza as Ingleborough.

After more than four decades of entertaining and supporting the village and wider York community, Dunnington Players are taking the next step with a Fringe show that weaves universal themes of friendship, love and loss into a play with "local settings and local characters, Yorkshire songs and Yorkshire stories". "It's our ambition that The Three Peaks will now entertain and support the wider community at the Edinburgh Fringe," says David.

The Dunnington Players will perform The Three Peaks at Venue 40, The Quaker Meeting House, Edinburgh, from August 11 to 16 from 6.20pm to 7.40pm. Tickets cost £8, concessions £6, on 0131 220 6109.

You can follow the Players' progress at facebook.co.uk/3PeaksEdFringe or on Twitter @3PeaksEdFringe