Theatre 2016: Review Twelve

King Charles III, Theatre Royal Norwich, Norwich. March 2016.

A busy ten days of plays finished with another trip to my local theatre to catch another production on tour from London.  Although this had had two runs in the capital I'd not made it to either, I had however won a copy of the script from Twitter and so was keen to see the play when it was announced close to home.

The premise of the play is clear from the title, the Queen is dead, long live King Charles III.  However after waiting for such a long time Charles has ideas of his own as to how the monarchy should act and his first decision is not to sign a parliamentary bill.  This causes chaos and the slow burn of the first act ends with Charles dissolving Parliament in an attempt to get his way.  The secon act is clever in resolving this.

While pure fantasy this play is also alarmingly close to the mark in many ways and very thought provoking - like all convincing political issues all sides seem to make perfect sense, until you hear the next speaker.

In addition to the astute politics this play is a modern Shakespeare, many of the lines are in verse and as per many great Shakespeare plays all of the characters have their own defined way of speaking to highlight their differences further.  The staging is also very Shakespearean - all that was missing was the jig at the end.  King Charles III manages to also be like Shakespeare in that the blend of tragedy, comedy and history is all balanced perfectly to leave the audience off balance. I've seen reviews likening it to the great tragedies of Macbeth and Hamlet but personally I found there to be a lot of resonances with both Richard II and Henry IV pt 1.

This is a long play, and personally I think the pacing is better in the second half. I don't know what could be be trimmed but I did feel that the first act was a little too long.  I'm really pleased to have seen this and as the theatre was full on the night I went I hope it proves that there is an appetite for new, complex plays and that they should tour.

Theatre 2015: Review Thirty-Six

Handbagged, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2015.

This was a last minute booking for me and a convenient matinee at the theatre opposite where I work meant I could take a gamble on this.  I wasn't sure that I needed to see another play about the relationship between the Queen and her Prime Minister - after all it wasn't that long since I'd seen the NT Live broadcast of The Audience.

The idea is the same in many ways, no one actually knows what went on when the Queen and Margaret Thatcher but Buffini uses real speeches and her imagination to make a believable play.

In some ways the story telling is quite conventional - we start the day after Mrs Thatcher was elected in 1979 and finish when she resigned in 1990. That is where convention stops.  The play is very hard to explain without making it sound incomprehensible, pretentious and like a long Spitting Image episode and it really is none of those things.

Essentially we have the Queen and Margaret Thatcher in older age looking back on the story, while another two actresses play the Queen and Margaret Thatcher during the 11 years of her rule.  There are also two male characters who play a further 27 parts between them to move the plot along.  The older ladies interject and interact with their younger selves, and older Queen repeatedly breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience...  see it sounds complicated and dreadful!

It wasn't at all, it was genuinely funny and at times shocking and moving.  I was a young teenager in 1990 when Thatcher resigned but I could remember 90% of the historical facts that were covered in the play, but those that I didn't recognise were explained in such a way that if it all became a bit 'Basil Exposition' then this was also referenced by the cast. Even in a big theatre like Norwich the nuance and expression came through and at times I did think I was watching the real people not actors - impressive seeing as there were two of them on stage at all times.

My discomfort with this play didn't come from the style or the acting but rather from the audience.  The writing of the play is non-judgemental and as I said earlier a lot of the actual lines come from real speeches just altered slightly to fit the stage representations.  Mrs Thatcher was a decisive figure in politics and very far to the right of where my own political belief is, the audience I shared this play with seemed to be, how shall we say..., more appreciative of her stance than I was.  Lines that I found shocking received laughter and applause and on the occasions when characters made comments more in line with my views the audience were stony silent or making their displeasure known.  It made for an interesting afternoon I suppose!

After the performance three of the cast held a q&a session and their insights in to the political mixes of the audiences in various locations was great fun to hear, as were there anecdotes about accidentally staying in role away from the stage!

I wasn't expecting much from my afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised that a play so similar to another recent hit could add to the story and engage and amuse me so thoroughly.  I may avoid weekday matinees for political plays in Norwich however!