Theatre review: James III - The True Mirror

Another change of pace from writer Rona Munro and director Laurie Sansom as we reach the end of the epic trilogy The James Plays with James III - The True Mirror. And if the first two Scottish kings to bear that name were complex characters whose actions weren't always easy to sympathise with, Jamie Sives' James III turns out to be an out-and-out dick. Flamboyant, bisexual, and preferring the grand gesture over the actual business of ruling, he's fond of squandering the country's meagre budget. A cathedral is the legacy he speaks of most, but in the meantime he'll settle for a choir to follow him around everywhere commentating on his actions. His relationships with courtiers Cochrane (Andrew Rothney) and Ramsay (Mark Rowley) as well as laundry girl Daisy¹ (Fiona Wood) are barely disguised from the court, least of all the queen. On the surface, his court is a place of safety and pleasure.

Theatre review: James II - Day of the Innocents

Rona Munro's James Plays are a trilogy, but each is meant not only to stand alone, but also to have its own distinct flavour. So it is with James II - Day of the Innocents, although arguably it's got two of them: After the epic action of James I we have something more intimate, centred on friendship and family, but before we can have that the hero, and the audience, have to face horrors. James I having been murdered, James II (Andrew Rothney) becomes king at the age of six. Too young to rule, he is a pawn in the wealthy earls' power struggles, even to the point of being kidnapped a couple of times as leverage. Livingston (Gordon Kennedy) finally gets the upper hand thanks to the infamous Black Dinner¹, in which the Earl of Douglas and his young brother are invited to dine with the king and, in violation of all the laws of hospitality, captured and killed. A childhood of bloodshed done in his name has left James with nightmares that persist well into his teens.