Sex, drama and a royal damp squib
HOW much of a sad pudding was Queen Anne (d. 1714) and did she nurture a sultry
tendresse for Sarah Churchill, later Duchess of Marlborough, which resulted in the statuesque Sarah acquiring undue political power?
Those are the questions asked by helen edmundson’s Queen Anne which, originally seen in Stratfordupon-Avon, has moved to the West end for three months.
The production proves less gripping than the subject matter. It is blighted by odd casting and some discordant writing, yet the evening is not without its merits.
At the centre is Queen Anne, played by emma Cunniffe as an unhappy stodge, almost disabled by cramps and sadness about her many lost children and her uncertain friendship with Sarah. I still can not decide if her performance was ineptly downbeat or brilliantly true to life.
As girls, Anne and Sarah were close — very close, we are led to believe. Anne tries to kiss Sarah, but is rebuffed.
THEY still address each other by old nicknames and Sarah runs the Queen’s household. She exploits the Queen’s unrequited love to direct her politically.
Romola Garai is OK as Sarah, but could we not have more skittishness, more sexual charisma, more dash and drive?
Miss Garai is not entirely to blame. She is saddled with a dud of a husband, Chu Omambala not for a moment convincing as the victor of Blenheim and Malplaquet. John Churchill was one of england’s most hard-bitten warriors. We should be able to smell the dust of battle off his swirling cape. Mr Omambala offers a tame, two- dimensional figure. Dreadful direction by Natalie Abrahami.
everything is staged in front of semi-circular wood-panelling, some of whose doors were sticking at Monday’s opening night. Scenes of courtly intrigue in or near the Queen’s bedchamber are interspersed with implausible scenes of bawdy singing by political satirists of the era, including Jonathan Swift.
These are tiresome, as is some of the script. A character says ‘I’m glad to have this opportunity to speak with you’, as though a 21st-century American businessman. There is talk of someone else ‘losing his job’ and another being ‘suspended pending an inquiry’.
WHERE the production scores is in the machinations by the Speaker of the Commons and the Lord Chancellor (well done by James Garnon and Richard hope).
A creepy, sly Speaker? Now there’s a prospect! Several lines about the awkwardness of the Scots and the partisan posturing of Westminster politics raise laughs.
Anne tells the politicians to think of the country’s welfare rather than their own narrow interests. Same old, huh?