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Iron Lady’s tete-a-tete with the monarch is great British fun

  • Writer: Annette Kinsella
    Annette Kinsella
  • 2 minutes ago
  • 2 min read
Helen Reuben, Emma Ernest. Photo by Manuel Harlan.
Helen Reuben, Emma Ernest. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

Handbagged by Moira Buffini at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry  from 29 April to 3 May as part of Theatre Nation Partnerships network.

Review by Annette Kinsella


If walls in the corridors of power could speak, they’d have a bestseller worthy of Jilly Cooper or Geoffrey Archer on their hands. And none would yield gossip so juicy as those in Buckingham Palace, the site of weekly conversations between the monarch and the Prime Minister of the day. This reimagining of what might have taken place between Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth during their meetings  is the subject of Moira Buffini’s Handbagged, currently at the Belgrade Theatre.


I say reimagining, but actually the dialogue is rooted firmly in imagination and conjecture, as there is no record of the private dialogue between the Iron Lady (Emma Ernest and Morag Cross) and the head of state (Helen Reuben and Sarah Moyle). The artful dual casting gives an insight into the inner monologue of each woman, while simultaneously playing out the events of history as recorded.


Emma Ernest, Cassius Konneh, Helen Reuben. Photo by Manuel Harlan.
Emma Ernest, Cassius Konneh, Helen Reuben. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

A solid gold 80s soundtrack sung by the cast deftly punctuates the passing years, while acting as a chorus to symbolise the political climate. So the 80s begin with the sunny optimism of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky, while Duran Duran’s Hungry Like The Wolf mirrors the sharks as they begin to circle at the end of Thatcher’s reign.


Unapologetically anti-Thatcher, the play throws an unforgiving light on her harshest policies, while the Queen – by some stretch of the imagination – is a socialist sympathiser, shocked at the callous state of her realm. The antagonism between the two female powerhouses provides pace and tension, but it’s the caricatures of the supporting cast (Dennis Herdman and Cassius Konneh) that brings the show to life. Ronald Reagan is a home-on-the-range cowboy, Rupert Murdoch an uncouth Aussie robber baron and Geoffrey Howe a lily-livered milksop cowering in the face of Thatcher's handbag and pearls.


Buffini’s script is wry and clever but what lifts the performance is its unabashed theatricality. The characters frequently step out of character to interact with the audience, not so much breaking the fourth wall as taking a flamethrower to it and stomping on the embers, inviting us into the action and adding more layers of satire with a pantomime-esque exaggerated wink.


Overall, this is less politics and more satire, in the best British tradition of Yes Minister or The Thick of It. It may not provide us with accurate documentation of the Iron Lady’s audiences with the Queen, but it gives us plenty of scandal to chew over.



 

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