Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

This is the familiar tale of the enmity between Elizabeth I of England and Mary Queen of Scots, but retold by Scotland’s unofficial Poet Laureate with a ferocious iconoclasm. Needless to say, the play ends when Mary Queen of Scots gets her head chopped off! A modern Scottish classic, first staged at the Edinburgh Lyceum in 1987, Liz Lochhead’s “Mary Queen of Scots” is republished here in a revised version with a new introduction by the author. The play is enormously popular with Scottish schools and drama groups. It was originally published by Penguin.

Reviews of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

It draws the most uncomfortable parallels between the sacrifice of Mary, and the myriad sexual, political and religious deformities that still plague the Scottish psyche. The GuardianA triumph – the characterisations never slide over into caricature but are full-bodied, subtle, humorous and virile. Time Out