In Spring 2024 Rona Munro’s renowned James Plays continue, with a fifth standalone production set to tour across Scotland.
A Raw Material and Capital Theatres co-production, James V: Katherine continues the theatrical series with the vivid historical storytelling of the previous instalments, set during the reigns of Scotland’s generations of Stewart kings. James V: Katherine places a lesser-known female historical figure front and centre in the story, with an intimate and up-close performance with focussed, raw and beautiful storytelling, directed by Orla O’Loughlin.
Katherine Hamilton is nineteen. She’s a young married woman, but she also has a secret love she’s trying to forget. When her brother Patrick is executed for preaching ideas forbidden by the church, Katherine is also put on trial for her life. In a packed courtroom, watched by most of Edinburgh and the cynical young King James V, Katherine fights for survival, using her intelligence and wit.
This play is based on real historical figures and is a dramatic interpretation of key events at the very start of the Scottish Reformation, events that did happen and did change Scotland forever. It is also a love story.
Writer Rona Munro said “When I first imagined writing this series of Scottish history plays it seemed very unlikely I would have one produced in Scotland, let alone five, however I’ve always known the stories I want to tell with each play – so this moment, when ‘Katherine’ is going into production, is the realisation of a long held ambition. In continuing the cycle I want to surprise audiences with fresh narratives. This play was always intended to be very different in tone and style to the first four but will continue their larger story and, hopefully, my ambition to make invisible histories visible.”
Raw Material said “We are thrilled to be co-producing again with Capital Theatres and to be returning to Rona’s famous James cycle with this new play, hot on the heels of the success of James IV: Queen of the Fight, which toured across large-scale venues in Autumn 2022. We’re led by Rona’s writing, and our instinct with ‘Katherine’ was to lean into the intimacy of the play and to perform in smaller scale venues that enhance and support this, while also producing epic, high quality story-telling, with director Orla O’Loughlin at the helm. We want to bring this tale of love and death, at a time of great change in Scotland’s history, to audiences across the country, from the Highlands to the Borders, engaging with people who have seen the previous James Plays, and those who have not.”
The production, that is supported by Chris Grace Hartness and funded by the Creative Scotland Touring Fund, will premiere in Capital Theatres’ The Studio in Edinburgh from Wednesday 10th April 2024, before embarking on a tour of smaller-scale Scottish venues with stops in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Tobermory, Inverness, Dunoon, Dunkeld, St Andrews, Stirling, Peebles and Hawick from April-June 2024 .
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 