Rona Munro

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Scottish writer (born 1959)

title: "Rona Munro" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1959-births", "20th-century-scottish-dramatists-and-playwrights", "20th-century-scottish-women-writers", "21st-century-scottish-dramatists-and-playwrights", "21st-century-scottish-women-writers", "21st-century-scottish-writers", "living-people", "scottish-radio-writers", "scottish-women-dramatists-and-playwrights", "scottish-women-screenwriters", "scottish-women-television-writers", "theatre-in-scotland", "women-radio-writers", "writers-from-aberdeen", "writers-from-edinburgh"] description: "Scottish writer (born 1959)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rona_Munro" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Scottish writer (born 1959) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Rona Munro
image	Rona Munro - photo by Mihaela Bodlovic (cropped).jpg
caption	Munro teaching at Playwrights' Studio Scotland in 2016
birth_date
birth_place	Aberdeen, Scotland
occupation	Writer, playwright
::

| name = Rona Munro | image = Rona Munro - photo by Mihaela Bodlovic (cropped).jpg

| caption = Munro teaching at Playwrights' Studio Scotland in 2016 | birth_date = | birth_place = Aberdeen, Scotland | occupation = Writer, playwright

Rona Munro (born 7 September 1959) is a Scottish writer. She has written plays for theatre, radio, and television. 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. Munro is the second cousin (once removed) of Scottish author Angus MacVicar.

Munro wrote the last serial of the original Doctor Who in 1989, and returned to the show in 2017, writing an episode for the tenth series of the revived version. This made her the only writer thus far who has worked in both the classic and revival eras of Doctor Who.

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.

Career

Her 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 work on Doctor Who was not limited to just Survival (1989) and "The Eaters of Light" (2017). She later novelised both stories for the original and revived range of Target Books, respectively.

Her 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 UK. 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. Her early television work includes episodes of the drama series Casualty (BBC) and, more recently, a BBC film, Rehab, directed by Antonia Bird.

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.

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
{{cite book| title=The House of Bernarda Alba| year=1999| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-wxfoF4i3HMC&q=Rona+Munro&pg=PA1| author=Federico García Lorca| publisher=Nick Hern Books| isbn=978-1-85459-459-4|trans-title=Rona Munro }}
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

(26 May 2018). "Scots playwright Rona Munro has a unique honour".
Jeffery, Morgan. (16 November 2016). "Doctor Who series 10 hires a writer from the classic series - but who?".
McMillan, Joyce, "Quietly, yet fiercely significant...", in ''The Last Witch'' theatre programme, [[Pitlochry Festival Theatre]], 2018, p. 5
(16 November 2016). "Series 10: Classic Writer Returns With "The Eaters of Light"". DoctorWhoTV.
(14 July 2022). "Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light (Target Collection)".
"Hillcrest Theatre to Raise the Curtain on American Debut of “The James Plays”".
(28 February 2024). "100 years of Scottish history on stage at Hillcrest High School". Fox 13.
Douglas Gifford. (1991). "Making Them Bold And Breaking The Mould: Rona Munro's Bold Girls". The Association for Scottish Literary Studies.
Higgins, Charlotte. (9 August 2009). "Rona Munro burns bright at Edinburgh". The Guardian.
(9 April 2018). "Rebus: Rankin's gritty Scottish detective to make stage debut". [[The Guardian]].
(12 June 2023). "James IV - Queen of the Fight | Glasgow | reviews, cast and info | WhatsOnStage".
Hannan, Martin. (25 June 2021). "Sequel to successful historic plays set to show across Scotland".
(14 April 2024). "James V: Katherine review – queer love in the time of the Scottish kings".

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