Between 2022-24, James’ main focus was different manifestations of his ‘poetry-play’ Jimmy Mack the Shapeshifting Jester.

Jimmy Mack the Shapeshifting Jester is an absurdist comedy 'poetry-play' in which we get to know Jimmy Mack the Jester across a string of monologues wherein he performs as a motley crew of anti-hero alter-egos performing spoken word. The play is set in an imaginary lair beneath Arthur’s Seat called ‘The Auld Reekie Echo Chamber’. Jimmy Mack cannot leave this enclosure, and he is performing for a non-existent audience: probably as a coping mechanism for his alienated condition. Although the play is absurd and comical, it is also melancholic, existential, and personal. The monologues are characterised by wry humour, parody, absurdity, self-absorption, meta-theatrical devices (self referentiality; drawing attention to its construction and artificiality), references to Edinburgh, and reflections on art.