It will come as no surprise that the three
James Plays are overrun with blood-lusting, hairy-arsed men in kilts and sharp-tongued, sharp-minded women who keep the accounts. Throw in the odd bagpipe, jig, drinking competition, football match, and boy-on-boy snog and you've a perspective on the Scots that confirms every stereotype. It also confirms the boast that Scottish society is more egalitarian: there is little difference between the royal courts and a Glasgow barroom.
We're used to Shakespeare's History Cycles showing English games of thrones: the country's top families fighting for supremacy across two or three generations of political development.
The James Plays have a similar brief but the stories are told quite differently, perhaps because they are written by a woman. Rona Munro has put love and a marriage at the heart of each piece. The wives are the powers behind the throne.
James I returned to Scotland with an English wife after 18 years in captivity. His role was to restore peace between the nations. As
James I, James McArdle beautifully portrays the King's development from an inexperienced intellectual to the destroyer of his enemies. Gordon Kennedy and Blythe Duff as the displaced regent and his wife, are scarily Macbeth-like. Munro's writing is beautiful - coarse, fast, funny, moving, precise, and effortlessly didactic. Laurie Sansom's expert direction ensures every part of the centralised stage is filled with action.
James II suffers from a dull first half in which the strands of tribal in-fighting have to be sorted, but the second is as good as anything in the first play. Andrew Rothney somehow manages the difficult job of playing himself as a six-year-old as well as an adult and Stephanie Hyam, who was the delightfully bossy Queen Joan in
James I, here beguiles as the playful French-born Queen Mary.
James III boasts Jamie Sives as the fey, almost gay, King. Sofie
Gråbøl, star of
The Killing, does a terrific turn as his Danish wife, Margaret, wooing him with coloured silks while turning a blind eye to his bi-fumblings. The modern setting of
this last play - the cast jigs to reworkings of Pharrel's
Happy and Lorde's
Royals - is odd. The story is heavily skewed around the marriage and the King's louche and arrogant behaviour. This blurs focus, but creates a rather jolly party feel.
In conclusion: A cracking way to spend a day with enough slack in James II to grab a quick forty winks. As stand alone plays the first is a must. The second is vital if you want to follow the whole story through. The third is huge fun with scenes one won't see anywhere else, and neither requires nor offers a great level of context. Well worth a look.
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