He performed in many theatre and television roles between 1960 and 1989, and was an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

James was born in Machynlleth, the son of a railwayman,[1] and attended the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

After training at RADA,[2] in 1953 James joined Peter Hall and John Barton's Oxford Playhouse-based Elizabethan Theatre Company.

[3] James's notable roles at the RSC included Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1968; Gower in Pericles, 1969; Feste in Twelfth Night, 1969; The Boss in Günter Grass' The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising, 1970; The Cardinal in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, 1971; Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, 1971; Iago in Othello, 1971; the title role in King John, 1974; Mephistopheles in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, 1974; Chorus in Henry V, 1975; the title role in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, 1975–76; York in Henry VI, parts I, II and III, 1977–78; Jaques in As You Like It, 1977; Edgar in Strindberg's The Dance of Death, 1978; Cassius in Julius Caesar, 1983; Malvolio in Twelfth Night, 1984; and Sir Giles Overreach in Philip Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1984.

The couple set up home, firstly in London then in Warwickshire, when James began his lasting association with the RSC at Stratford.