A SCOTTISH film legend’s screenplay about Mary, Queen of Scots will be brought to life on Radio 4 this weekend.
Alexander Mackendrick was long known to have written a script for a film about the monarch, but the director of Whisky Galore and The Sweet Smell of Success did not live to see it made.
Glenda Jackson narrates the radio play Mary, Queen of Scots, which will be broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday.
Mackendrick imagined the story as a western, a portrait of a woman trying to survive internecine battles for power between rival clans, but also described the screenplay as “a gangster study”.
The director first began the film’s development whilst at Ealing Films in the 1950s, but was ultimately vetoed as too disrespectful of royalty.
For the radio adaptation, director Hope Dickinson Leach and producers Dancing Ledge Productions have collaborated with the film’s intended producer, Sandy Liberson, and the Mackendrick estate.
Rising star Ellie Bamber plays Mary Stuart, with Emun Elliot as Bothwell and Edward Holcroft as Darnley, the queen’s third and second husbands respectively.
Glenda Jackson said: “I love radio, it’s my favourite medium – because you never have to learn your lines or wear make-up.”
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