James V: Katherine, A Love Story- Theatre @ Melrose Corn Exchange

Overview

Raw Material & Capital Theatres present James V: Katherine, A Love Story by Rona Munro.

The renowned James Plays continue with this fifth standalone episode, which will surprise and delight audiences when presented as an up-close-and-intimate performance, with focussed, raw storytelling, in smaller theatres around Scotland. Directed by Orla O’Loughlin, James V: Katherine places a lesser-known female historical figure front and centre in the story.

Katherine Hamilton is nineteen. She’s a respectable 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 put on trial for her life too. She too will be tortured and executed unless she denounces her brother. Devoted and defiant, Katherine refuses, as she believes Patrick’s death might just change Scotland forever. 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. It’s the performance of her life. But as she struggles to claim innocence, the hidden love between her and a young woman, who never leaves her side throughout the ordeal, challenges her to decide what is really worth living and dying for.

This play is based on real historical figures and is a speculative interpretation of key events at the very start of the Scottish Reformation, events which did happen and did change Scotland forever. But this is also a love story…

Supported by:
Chris Grace Hartness
Creative Scotland Touring Fund 

31st May and 1st June 2024*
Melrose Corn Exchange
£8

Book your tickets here.