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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.[1]
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.[2]
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.[3]
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.[3]
Munro's work on Doctor Who was not limited to just Survival (1989) and "The Eaters of Light" (2017).[4] She later novelised both stories for the original and revived range of Target Books, respectively.[5]
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.[6][7]
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.
- 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
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