Glenda Jackson revisits Mary Queen of Scots drama as forgotten Hollywood script is revived for radio

When Glenda Jackson played Elizabeth I in Mary, Queen of Scots in 1971, she was at the peak of her screen career.

Nearly half a century later, she is revisiting the story - but this time on radio because, in her words, "I very rarely get offered anything that requires a camera".

Jackson has been cast in the world premiere of the late Alexander Mackendrick's Mary, Queen of Scots, a Hollywood screenplay that never was.

Mackendrick, director of Sweet Smell of Success and The Ladykillers, spent years trying and failing to get the project off the ground in the 1950s and 1960s.

The script has now been adapted for Radio 4's Unmade Movies series and will be heard next month for the first time, with Jackson as the narrator and Ellie Bamber playing the lead.

"Radio is probably my favourite medium. I just think it's a wonderful medium to act in. The BBC is what I listen to most," said Jackson, who won an Oscar in 1971 for Women In Love and a second in 1974 for A Touch of Class.

"I very rarely get offered anything that requires a camera, be it television or film. The ones that do come my way are not very interesting. It is just extraordinary that still the majority of creative contemporary writers do not find women to be the central dramatic engine."

Jackson said she is open to working with the likes of Netflix, although she has never used a streaming service herself. "I'd consider doing a big drama for anybody if it was good," she told the Telegraph.

At the suggestion she could follow in the footsteps of fellow Northerner Sir Ian McKellen and play a character in Coronation Street, Jackson said: That's quite a compliment, because I think actors in things like Coronation Street are marvellous."

The life of Mary, Queen of Scots is a story she knows well, after playing Elizabeth I to Vanessa Redgrave's Mary in the 1971 film.

"Both of their lives, and the responsibilities that landed on their shoulders, were extraordinarily dramatic. But I think we tend to romanticise that period. If you actually look at the realities of life under the Tudors it was pretty horrendous unless you had a great deal of money and a great deal of influence," she said.

"We focus on the frocks, I think."

Jackson played the Tudor monarch a second time in 1971 in Elizabeth R, the acclaimed BBC series. She laments the fact that the corporation could not make a drama of that scale now.

"It was all in-house at the BBC. Sets were made out of yoghurt pots and things like that. It was just amazing what they did. But all that has gone. There is no in-house creativity at the BBC, it's all been siphoned off," she said.

The producers of the radio play, which will be broadcast on December 8, said Jackson was their first choice for the narrator's role.

"Apart from Mary there are no other female characters of consequence in the script - she is utterly alone in this strange world of clans and conspiracies, so we felt that by casting a strong, authoritative woman as our narrator, we'd give Mary an ally.

"Of course, Glenda was our very first thought, because she is such a powerful and distinctive actor, but also one with a history in politics we felt was highly relevant to this story."

Jackson made her acting comeback in 2015 after 23 years as a Labour MP. She won rave reviews for King Lear at the Old Vic and a Tony Award for Edward Albee's Three Tall Women on Broadway.

In March, she will reprise her King Lear in New York and, at 82, is undaunted by the gruelling nature of the role.

When Sir Ian McKellen played Lear in the West End last year, he took a nightly nap in his dressing room during the 45-minute period when the character is off-stage.

"Good for him. I went out for a cigarette," Jackson said of her own London run in the play.

"When I did it at the Old Vic, I was very concerned beforehand that I didn't have the physical or vocal energy for it so I swam, which is probably the most boring way to get yourself fit.

"But there is such energy in that play that once it starts, it's just amazing. It carries you along.

"I remember when my father was ill once, I'm going back a long way now, he had retired and the doctor said, 'The thing that makes people rust fastest is a comfortable chair.' And I think that's absolutely true."

 Unmade Movies: Alex Mackendrick’s Mary Queen of Scots is on Saturday December 8 on Radio 4 at 2.30pm