Rona Munro (born 7 September 1959) is a Scottish writer for theatre, radio, television, and films. Her film work includes Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird (1994), Oranges and Sunshine (2010) for Jim Loach, and Aimée & Jaguar (1999), co-authored by German director Max Färberböck.
Early life Munro went to school in Stonehaven and studied at the University of Edinburgh, where she wrote plays for the Television Society. After graduating in 1980, she was involved in the staging of the series of Women Live festivals at the Netherbow Theatre in Edinburgh.McMillan, Joyce, "Quietly, yet fiercely significant...", in The Last Witch theatre programme, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 2018, p. 5
Career Munro's first commissioned play was Fugue in 1983. This was followed in 1990 by Bold Girls, set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Iron, first produced at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 2002 and staged many times worldwide.
Munro's early television work included Survival (1989), the last serial of the original Doctor Who, and she returned to the show in 2017, writing "The Eaters of Light" for the tenth series of the revived version. This made her the only writer who has worked in both eras of Doctor Who. She later novelised both stories for the original and revived range of Target Books, respectively. She also wrote episodes of the BBC hospital drama series Casualty, and a BBC film, Rehab, directed by Antonia Bird.
Munro's history cycle The James Plays, James I, James II, and James III, were first performed by the National Theatre of Scotland in summer 2014 in a co-production with Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre. The plays were staged again in early 2016. She followed this up with James IV - The Queen of the Fight in 2022, which concentrated on the presence of two black women at his court. Other theatre work includes plays for the Traverse Theatre (Your Turn To Clean The Stair, Strawberries in January translation), Manchester Royal Exchange (Mary Barton, Scuttlers), Plymouth Drum Theatre and Paines Plough (Long Time Dead), and the Royal Shakespeare Company (The Indian Boy, The Astronaut's Chair). The James Plays were performed in the United States for the first time at Hillcrest High School in Midvale, Utah in early 2024.
Munro has also contributed eleven dramas to Radio 4's Stanley Baxter Playhouse: First Impressions, Wheeling Them In, The King's Kilt, Pasta Alfreddo at Cafe Alessandro, The Man in the Garden, The Porter's Story, The German Pilot, The Spider, The Showman, Meg's Tale, and The Flying Scotsman.
In 2006 the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith presented Munro's adaptation of Richard Adams' classic book Watership Down.
Rona Munro currently lives and works in Scotland. Her play The Last Witch was performed at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival, directed by Dominic Hill, and in 2011 by Dumbarton People's Theatre. Pitlochry Festival Theatre's production, directed by Richard Baron, toured Scotland in 2018. Also in 2018, a production of her adaptation of My Name Is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney opened in London.
A play about Katherine Hamilton, sister of Patrick Hamilton, is being performed on tour in 2024.
Personal life Munro is the second cousin (once removed) of Scottish author Angus MacVicar.
Awards Giles Cooper Award for Dirt Under The Carpet, 1988 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 1991 Evening Standard Award, NOOK Award for Best Play for The James Plays, 2014 Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award, Best Play for The James Plays, 2014
Works Plays
The Bang and the Whimper, 1982 The Salesman, 1982 Fugue, 1983 Bus, 1984 Touchwood, 1984 Ghost Story, 1985 Piper's Cave, 1985 Watching Waiters, 1985 Biggest Party in the World, 1986 Dust And Dreams, 1986 The Way To Go Home, 1987 Winners, 1987 Off The Road, 1988 Long Story Short, 1989 Saturday at the Commodore, 1989 Bold Girls, 1990 Scotland Matters, 1992 Your Turn To Clean The Stair, 1992 Haunted, 1999
Snake, 1999
Stick Granny on the Roofrack, 2002 Gilt, 2003 Catch A Falling Star!, 2004 Women on the Verge of a T Junction, 2004 Indian Boy, 2006 Long Time Dead, 2006 The Maiden Stone, 2006 Mary Barton, 2006 Strawberries in January, (translation) 2006 Watership Down, 2006 Dirt Under The Carpet, 2007 The Last Witch, 2009 Little Eagles, 2011 The Astronaut's Chair, 2012 Donny's Brain, 2012 The James Plays, 2014 James I: The Key Will Keep the Lock James II: Day of the Innocents James III: The True Mirror Scuttlers, 2015 Rebus: Long Shadows, 2018 My Name Is Lucy Barton, 2018 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 2019 James IV: Queen of the Fight, based on the life of the courtier Ellen More, 2022 Mary, based on the life of Mary Stuart, 2022 James V: Katherine, 2024
Screen Doctor Who, "Survival" (1989) Casualty, Say It with Flowers (1990) Ladybird, Ladybird (1994) Aimée & Jaguar (1999) Oranges and Sunshine (2010) Doctor Who, "The Eaters of Light" (2017)
References
External links
Interview Rona Munro, doollee Guardian interview preceding Edinburgh festival 2009.