SOME eight years have passed since Rona Munro’s “James Plays” (a trilogy set during the reigns of the kings James I, II and III of Scotland) played the Edinburgh International Festival to considerable – but not universal – critical acclaim. One over-excited critic even wondered if the dramas surpassed the history plays of Shakespeare?
I did not, I confess, share his enthusiasm. Reviewing the trilogy for this newspaper’s predecessor the Sunday Herald, I suggested it might be “the biggest missed opportunity in the history of Scottish theatre.”
Despite their grand historical subject matter, the plays were, I thought, lacking in real drama. The same is true of James IV: Queen Of The Fight, the fourth part of a series that is heading inexorably towards a play about that pivotal monarch in British history, James VI of Scotland and I of England.
