Handbagged, 7.5.14

Marion Bailey as "Q" and Stella Gonet as "T" in Moira Buffini's comic gem "Handbagged"

Moira Buffini’s sparkling comedy about the weekly meetings between Maggs and HMQ, which Motley missed at its Tricycle première, has won a well-deserved transfer to the West End, and comes highly recommended. 

L-R: Lucy Robinson (Liz), Marion Bailey (Q)
Stella Gonet (T), Fenella Foolgar (Maggs)

This well-written, larky and funny play comprised two Thatchers (Stella Gonet as the older “T” in dark blue and Fenella Foolgar as the younger “Maggs” resplendent in royal blue) and two Queens (Marion Bailey, all scowls and jowls as the older “Q”, Lucy Robinson more neutral as the younger “Liz”), bouncing off each other.  The doubling of roles provided a mechanism for voicing the other self’s inner thoughts as well as for looking back in judgment. 

Neet Mohan and Jeff Rawle played a huge range of (mainly) male roles

Two excellent comic actors (Jeff Rawle from 90s TV's “Drop the Dead Donkey” and newcomer Neet Mohan) covered off a host of other cameos in a bewildering range of accents, from Denis to Kinnock to Reagan to (my favourite) Mohan in full drag as Nancy Reagan, immaculately coiffured in red, bouncing along on a bone-shaker driven by HMQ in Windsor Great Park. 

Buffini’s use of self-referencing meta-theatricality (the Queen is desperate for an interval, whilst Maggs is happy to dispense with it) and use of the male bit-parts to offer light relief and to give voice to opposing voices proved highly effective.  The nuanced text moved deftly from slapstick to pathos and gave a well-rounded view of each leading lady.  Motley particularly enjoyed the jokes about Thatcher shivering in Balmoral and loathing every minute of Prince Philip's barbecues.

Stella Gonet as the 1990 T and Fenella Foolgar as the 1979 Maggs

The culmination of the plot-line was the ‘Sunday Times’’ story from 1986 (which Motley remembers as if it were yesterday) claiming that HMQ was “dismayed” by Thatcher’s divisiveness.  “Is Her Majesty a socialist?” asks a Maggs clearly going off the psychological rails after the failed Brighton bomb.  “I don’t think she’s an actual Trot, old love” replies Denis. 

It’s a familiar story (cf “Margaret”, “The Long Walk to Finchley”, “The Iron Lady”), in many ways the background music to Motley's whole life, but one which it’s hard to tire of when, like this, it’s done so well.  It's also an altogether more entertaining effort than last year’s “The Audience”, which covered off broadly similar ground with La Mirren as HMQ.  Hard to believe it’s only 25 years since Prunella Scales as the Queen in Alan Bennett’s “A Question of Attribution” was accused of lèse-majesté for the first ever stage depiction of a ruling monarch.