5/5
It’s worth queueing round the block for Moira Buffini’s play, which depicts the meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher
ByDominic Cavendish, THEATRE CRITIC15 September 2022 • 11:01pm
Abigail Cruttenden, Kate Fahy, Marion Bailey and Naomi Frederick in Handbagged CREDIT: Tristram Kenton
Ahead of the start of Handbagged, Moira Buffini’s Olivier-winning portrait of the encounters between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher during the latter’s terms in office, a minute’s silence is being observed. Kiln artistic director Indhu Rubasingham is also telling her audience that “the decision to continue has been one of deep consideration.”
Might it have been wisest to postpone her revival, given the overlap with the mourning period and sure-to-last mood of heightened reverence? The question is unignorable, especially when Marion Bailey’s elderly Queen Elizabeth – dubbed Q – bustles into view, comically dragging with her a chair she politely insists Kate Fahy’s Thatcher (T) sit on; an invitation met with a firm refusal that sets the scene for a complex relationship of contrasting personalities.
Is the evening, a skip-through of key episodes in the Thatcher Eighties – with interjections from supporting characters who don’t want the downsides glossed over – going to be too flip to honour the end of the reign? And conversely, might the incarnations – plural because, as with Mrs T, we see the Queen at a younger age as well – prove so accurate that they press too painfully on fresh wounds?
All I can say is that I was transfixed and moved in ways I don’t recall being when the production premiered shortly after Baroness Thatcher’s death in 2013.
Yes, there is a strange, almost guilty pleasure in seeing the late Queen theatrically ‘present’ so soon after her passing, and lent such uncanny recognisability. Bailey, who played the role in the original production, not only looks the part with her grey hair, clasped gloved hands and smart, pleated apricot skirt, she also catches the mannerisms, and the human being within them. There, again, is the tactful – and tactical – reticence, the concentrated listening, the firmly pressed lips that give way to beaming smiles, the handbag clutched as if a source of comfort. It is, unmistakably, ‘Ma’am’, yet an avowed fiction – so near, yet so far.
The cast of Handbagged CREDIT: Tristram Kenton
There were three times when I cathartically choked up (others will be ambushed in different ways): when Abigail Cruttenden, clipped and sweetly forceful as the younger ‘Liz’, imparts those lines from 1947, “My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service…”; when she brightens in talking about Balmoral (“We love being out on the moors”); and when Bailey briefly potters through the stalls (“Have you come far?”). In these you see that reflex dutifulness, residual warmth and easy, maternal rapport that made her so greatly loved.
It’s no hagiography, but as with Peter Morgan’s The Audience (seed-bed of The Crown), it’s imbued with an admiration for her diligence, and celebrates her vital contribution to the functioning of the British state.
There’s a clear, even crudely schematic contrast – in her love of the Commonwealth and concern about social cohesion – with the robust Thatcherite principles of self-reliance and tough government, given fire-breathing force by Fahy (spookily the spit of the PM in her regal pomp) and Naomi Frederick. The clash points, based on research and surmise, are aired. But the points of connection, and shared feminine valour, are foregrounded too. They’ve now passed into history, taking the secrets of their meetings to the grave. Those coming to terms with the end of an era, and seeking some means to express their devotion too, should queue round the block to see this.
The Stage
4 stars out of 5
“An exceptional cast”
REVIEWSSEP 16, 2022KILN THEATRE, LONDON
Abigail Cruttenden, Kate Fahy, Marion Bailey and Naomi Frederick in Handbagged at the Kiln Theatre, London. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Uproarious dramatisation of Thatcher’s royal audiences becomes a freshly poignant tribute
The Kiln was not to know, when it programmed Handbagged last year, that this revival would open as the Queen was lying-in-state at Westminster Hall. But as things are, Indhu Rubasingham’s production feels like an impeccably timed tribute to an era that has now passed into the history books.
Akin to Peter Morgan’s similarly themed The Audience, Moira Buffini’s play focuses on the weekly meetings between the Queen and the prime minister. But rather than proceeding through the long line of 15 PMs, Buffini imagines Her Majesty in encounters only with her longest-serving leader, Margaret Thatcher, with whom she famously had a fractious relationship.
An exceptional cast carries proceedings as we journey from election night in 1979 through the various seminal events of her administration. Everything from the Queen’s restrained smile (she’s played by Marion Bailey as an older woman, and Abigail Cruttenden when younger) to the distinctive, lilting vocal mannerisms of Thatcher (Kate Fahy and Naomi Frederick) are replicated to uncanny perfection. Richard Cant and Romayne Andrews ably deliver a conveyor belt of supporting roles – from Dennis Thatcher and Gerry Adams to Lord Carrington and Nancy Reagan.
Buffini’s script is immensely funny, but the well-researched, subtle characterisation of the leads prevents the hilarity from slipping into caricature. Thatcher is presented as a bumbling ideological obsessive, wearing her political persona like a suit of armour. The Queen, meanwhile, has an air of unimpeachable authority, but her inability to speak freely – due to her constitutional position and her lack of education – gives her an air of slight sadness.
Conflict arises when the Queen fears Thatcher is insulting her intelligence, while Thatcher suspects the Queen is contemptuous of her middle-class background. But the script is not solely preoccupied with those in power – the homophobia and racism of the day are also touched upon. We are shown Thatcher’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the cruel reality of apartheid – in contrast to the Queen’s empathy.
Buffini is consciously disruptive of dramatic form, with the fourth wall consistently broken and actors shifting between dialogue and monologue. The more cantankerous older women repeatedly interrupt their earnest younger selves, disputing what exactly took place, as anecdotes and timelines merge. It feels as if we are actively engaging with the uncertainties and biases of history.
Richard Kent’s design offers an impressive spectacle, with every detail from the richly evocative 1980s costumes to the crisp sugar lump plopped in the Queen’s china teacup carefully considered. It all helps to lend the production historical weight – apt, as the nation mourns the passing of the last great living link to the events of the play. At the curtain call, it felt as if we were applauding something more than just what was on the stage.
This long-planned revival finds itself carrying even more posthumous weight
©Tristram Kenton
By
8 hours ago
H
istory repeats itself. Moira Buffini’s smart, sharp play about the Queen’s supposedly antagonistic relationship with Margaret Thatcher premiered at this theatre in 2013, months after Thatcher’s death. This long-planned revival finds itself carrying even more posthumous weight. Too soon? Actually, no.
Handbagged features not one but two charming, affectionate portraits of the monarch – the first responding to the Iron Lady’s character and policies from 1979 to 1990, the second commenting from later age – that emphasise her compassion and tact. There’s nothing to upset royalists or even conflicted republicans here. Ardent Thatcherites may be less pleased with the parallel portrayals of their idol, though.
Having two versions of the Queen and Thatcher, and two male actors reduced to multiple, humiliating bit parts, is central to a witty script that packs in equal amounts of information, speculation and wry commentary about gender roles. “I never said that,” complain the older Q and T (Marion Bailey and Kate Fahy) of things that the younger Liz and Mags (Abigail Cruttenden and Naomi Frederick) utter in their private meetings and unrecorded asides. And vice versa.
Here we see what happens when an apparently unstoppable force meets an apparently immoveable object, Thatcher strident and awkward, the Queen secure and emollient. Buffini makes the case that the 80s saw a profound shift in the British character, away from the wartime spirit of “all in it together” and towards selfishness: she also acknowledges the absurdity of having a woman with a diamond hat express this. The four actresses each capture a thoroughly entertaining version of the two women’s distinctive vocal tones and mien.
In action: All four versions of the Queen and Thatcher
/ ©Tristram Kenton
The men, meanwhile, interrupt the established narrative – union-busting, the Falklands War, the collapse of communism – to force discussion on the 1981 riots, anti-gay Section 28 legislation, and the disastrous Poll Tax. There are in-jokes: Romayne Andrews, who is black, has to play Nancy Reagan but refuses to do Enoch Powell. He and Richard Cant fight over the role of Neil Kinnock and complain about their contracts.
It’s “meta”, but not annoyingly so. The Queen even overrides Thatcher, who typically wants to press on, to insist on an interval. It’s often her favourite part of a play, she tells us: she never much liked the theatre, though she liked the horses in War Horse.
Indhu Rubasingham’s production unfolds at a finely calibrated pace in front of an exploded, skeletal Union Jack supplied by designer Richard Kent. Lines about Prince Andrew, Jimmy Savile and trickle-down economics land differently than they did in 2013, and there is some final dialogue about dying and dementia that I think is new.
Buffini’s queen is arguably too much of a liberal fantasy and her Thatcher too much of a Gorgon, the former always defending the poor and minorities against the latter’s support for divisive internal policies and racist regimes abroad. Right now, neither of these exaggerations feels like a capital offence. This is a delightful show, more timely than it was ever meant to be.