In 1948, he played Oliphant, the Laird of Stumpie, in the first performance of Robert Kemp's Let Wives Tak Tent, a translation into Scots of Molière's L'école des femmes, at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh.

[4] He had a role in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, based on the book by Sir Compton Mackenzie, and, in the first TV series adapted from stories about Para Handy – Master Mariner, Neil Munro's masterpiece of west coast "high jinks", Macrae played the eponymous Captain.

[5] In 1953 he starred alongside Jean Anderson in the role of James MacKenzie, an embittered settler in the drama The Kidnappers for which he received a Scottish Arts Council award.

Macrae died in March 1967, in Glasgow, before the release of several screen appearances: in the films Casino Royale, and 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia, and in the television series The Wednesday Play and The Prisoner.

A Noble Clown, a solo play written and performed by Michael Daviot telling the story of the life of Duncan Macrae, was staged at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh on 30 November and 1 December 2024.