Scotland's Makar (the Scottish poet laureate) Liz Lochhead's play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off is currently showing in a new production at Edinburgh's Lyceum theatre. Speaking to Culture, she reflects upon the theatrical process in general as well as providing insight into the play itself.

Have you made any changes to the current production compared to how it was first performed?

It has certainly had changes over the years, but none at all in the script for this production. When Nick Hern Books re-published the play two and a half years ago at the time of NTS’s smallscale touring production, it was time to get the text polished and as perfect as I could make it.

The first production twenty-four years ago (with the brilliant director of Communicado, Gerry Mulgrew) was a helter-skelter voyage just to get shown at all.  It proved a big hit, but had a hole in it dramatically after Elizabeth, tricked, signed the death warrant. This was pointed out to me forcefully before the next major production several years later by the director of that one, David McVicar.

I fixed it for that production with a scene that filled the hole, but too elaborately, and, yes, it ruined the pace of the race to the ending... I, later, for my own satisfaction, wrote the current, short-but-feels-right scene, with Mary and her maid, Bessie, in her palace-prison the night before her death. It’s been used in as many productions as I knew about thereafter.

Do Scottish audiences react to it in a specific way?

Well, as Scottish audiences, they “own” this story in a way that audiences in, say, Manchester or Italy don’t. These other audiences really went for it though, as a great big bit of European theatre.

How difficult is it to hand over the finished script to the director and cast?

That’s not usually how it is with a new play. You and the director, ideally, tend to talk and consult before rehearsals. But when the play has had a few productions it does, of course, happen that there are productions you just see once they are on, if even then. I’ve often had very nice surprises, as well as a few shockers!

Did you write it deliberately aware that it’s portraying two strong female historical characters? Is there a feminist side to the play?

Yes, I did kind of notice that it was about “Twa queens on the one green island”! You tell me if it’s feminist. I’d prefer it to be deeply female, deeply humane. In no way is it a “girl’s night out.”

How involved are you in the creative process?

It varies. Nice to be consulted on the casting, but it’s up to the director in the end. In this case, Tony Cownie and I did do a lot of putting our heads together on the casting and were in one-hundred-percent agreement. These actors are just brilliant!

What is the most rewarding part of putting on a play?

For me, the first read-through in the rehearsal room on day one. If it works and the story makes sense and there isn’t a huge casting mistake everybody now has to live with... That said, I’ve been to a read-through where everybody had a lot of fun, including the producers, and the whole thing – play included – was, to my shame, a total turkey, a dead dog with fleas, when faced with an audience.

Any advice to future playwrights?

Stick in. Get it on. Somehow. Rewrite it, or, better, get on with the next. Get it on again, better.