YAWN OF Mary Queen Of Scots

Tale of two warring queens may look good

FILMS about monarchs usually do well at the Oscars.

And in any other year, this sumptuous period drama would have been a front runner in several categories.

The production values are high, the costumes are gorgeous and it has previous nominees Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, left, playing warring queens.

I can only imagine Ronan and Robbie’s faces on seeing Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, a wildly original drama about Queen Anne’s relationship with lover Sarah Churchill. They must have realised that Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz had sent their hopes to the tower.

To be fair, Robbie and Ronan had far less to work with. While Lanthimos found intrigue and comedy in the kinks of British history, theatre director Josie Rourke and House Of Cards writer Beau Willimon seem intent on ironing them out.

Here, the very eventful life of Scotland’s controversial queen has been tidied up to service a conventional underdog story with feminist undertones.

Mary (Ronan), who spent most of her childhood in the French court, lands on the coast of Scotland in 1561 wearing an immaculate frock and with a flawless Scottish accent.

As she is a devout Catholic, her half-brother James (James McArdle) and firebrand Protestant cleric John Knox (David Tennant) aren’t in the mood to break out the bunting.

She also causes considerable consternation in England, which is under the nominal rule of Elizabeth (Robbie), a childless, unmarried Protestant who is controlled by her advisers.

They want Elizabeth to provide a Protestant heir, but Mary thinks she has the right to rule both England and Scotland after Elizabeth’s death.

What follows is a battle between plucky Mary and the scheming men of the English and Scottish