THE KEY WILL KEEP THE LOCK, DAY OF THE INNOCENTS, THE TRUE MIRROR

There was a feverish atmosphere in Edinburgh when the James Plays, Rona Munro’s trilogy about three Scottish kings, James I, II and III, opened this summer. There always is during the festival, but this year it was exacerbated by the build-up to the independence referendum. Critics pronounced them the best thing to have come out of Scotland since porridge/tartan/ bagpipes. But then, having spent an entire day in the theatre, there’s a tendency to try and justify it.

So, a month on, having overdosed on all things Scottish, with the plays now being staged in London, do they live up to the hype?

The first splendidly exciting play, The Key Will Keep The Lock, certainly does. It has James I, a poet and birdwatcher, who had been imprisoned for 19 years in England, returning to claim his kingdom. ‘F*** women you don’t know and execute your relations. You’re a king. That’s the job,’ explains his foulmouthed cousin, Henry V, experienced in the game of thrones. And so it turns out, with James having to bump off his upstart barbaric dukes. In all three plays a vast dagger is jammed into the floor and occasionally, in Laurie Sansom’s exuberant and stylish staging, it runs with blood.

This study in kingship is also a poignant portrait of a marriage. A spirited Stephanie Hyam plays James’s wife, the English Queen Joan, a practical housewifely young woman with Kate Middleton hair. ‘I’m not sure a queen can ever be herself,’ she declares early on, wise beyond her years. ‘I’m sorry your armour hasn’t been cleaned,’ she says with utter seriousness as her hubby dresses for battle. One of the strengths and surprises of this dramatic marathon is the number of richly drawn, gutsy female characters to emerge.


Hyam enchants again as the doll-like French queen in the second, overlong, unfocused play, Day Of The Innocents, in which James II is haunted by the nightmare that was his childhood. Puppets, perhaps suggesting the fragility of the boy born with a purple birthmark on his face, are wheeled on to re-enact the horrors of being shut in a trunk, but add little drama.

In the final play, The True Mirror, set in the 1950s, Sofie Gråbøl, best known for wearing a woolly jumper in The Killing, gives a poised and powerful performance as Queen Margaret, betrayed by the camp, weak, posturing James III, who prefers boys.


And it’s a fascinating slice of history, vividly told, though with none of the theatrical and verbal bravura of that other play about kingship, King Charles III, currently playing in the West End. So the hamper won’t be necessary. Just see James I. And Charles III.

Until 29 October at the National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1: 020-7452 3000, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk