How not to lose the world …

James V: Katherine by Rona Munro | RAW Material and Capital Theatres | Friday, May 10 | OneTouch, Eden Court, Inverness

It was great to be able to get one of the last tickets left for the latest part of Rona Munro’s James plays series – the whole OneTouch was full from front to back.

But there was literally a different perspective on sixteenth century Scotland, looking down on top of the heads of the four-strong cast, taking us back to a time that probably never looked or sounded like this.

When playwright Rona Munro’s James Plays trilogy was premiered by a partnership of the National Theatre of Scotland and the National Theatre a month before the 2014 Referendum, modern language set the scene ­after battle between English and Scots – “You’re f***ing losers, we gubbed you!”

Street, Scottish slang – a fresh take on a history of Scottish kings still a bit vague to most pre-Referendum Scots with a lot on their minds, it set the scene for plays now sometimes seen as Shakespeare’s history plays for this country.

Ten years on, the fifth play is less of a production and fits easily on a smaller stage – but the questions it asks in a currently politically troubled Scotland are as big and telling as they were then and have parallels with so much now.

The sixth play – Mary – has already been seen in Hampstead. But James V: Katherine brings a less well-known woman from history and puts her moral dilemmas centre stage, with James V himself, an intriguing sideshow, played with Machiavellian power by Sean Connor.

Clive Davis, chief drama critic of The Times, has recently remarked how plays are changing their own history, re-serving it for changing times and attitudes – such as the PC version of the new stage Fawlty Towers.

But Rona Munro’s plays have always viscerally forced her Scottish audience to look again at history and the past, the Stewart kings – their times and our future – through contemporary eyes.

Scotland’s violent history, the personal struggles of those long-dead royals – not least the women – force an audience to look at themselves and their moral code.

James V: Katherine honours that tradition, but this plot puts women at its heart and offers a new take on bravery for an LGBTQ+-aware audience.

The rise of Protestantism is given a human face – actor Benjamin Osugo’s Scottish noble Patrick Hamilton brings to life the otherworldliness of a committed heretic, almost ready to die for his cause.

But in the powerful exchange between James V and Patrick’s savvy sister Katherine – a compelling performance from Catriona Faint and the mercurial monster Sean Connor makes of his James V – a real breakthrough beckons. It emerges through the stubborn presence of Patrick’s wife Jenny created by Alyth Ross in her professional stage debut. MC

Raw Material and Capital Theatres’ production of James V: Katherine by Rona Munro now tours to Birnam Arts Centre, St Andrews’ Byre Theatre, the MacRobert, Theatre, Stirling, Peebles’ Eastgate Theatre and ends at Melrose Corn Exchange on June 1.