‘Handbagged’ is one of those plays which purports (or at least tries) to get to the essence of certain real-life, very high-profile people; the subject matters in this case being the Queen and Margaret Thatcher. The play centres round their private conversations, over an eleven year period, for which there is no direct source material since the Prime Minister of the day’s weekly meetings with the Queen are famously never minuted, recorded or discussed. However writer Moira Buffini undertook much research, including meeting several MPs who were in the House during the '80s as well as reading numerous biographies so ‘Handbagged’ does have a strong air of authenticity, chronologically following the period interspersed with frequent cameo appearances of some leading players at the time, such as Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdock and Michael Heseltine.
It has to be said first and foremost that ‘Handbagged’ is extremely funny, never slacking in pace and full of excellent little impressions of key movers and shakers of the 1980s. The purposefully minimalist set was clearly designed to put full focus on the characters and the idiosyncratic costumes and hairstyles were to a fair extent very good (although the younger Thatcher’s hair was far too long).
The voices of the cast were first rate; if you closed your eyes and listened to either Thatcher, it was as if the Iron Lady herself was on the stage and the two ‘Queens’ both gave good representations of Her Majesty. Sarah Crowden as the older Thatcher presented a very frightening, uncompromising image of the Tory leader, whose ‘No’ really did mean No and let the Hounds of Hell say otherwise. . Alice Selwyn had the right voice and certainly had the mannerisms of the young Thatcher.
Susan Penhaligon as the older Queen brought over very well the playful side of the monarch (which really does exist!) whereas the younger Elizabeth presented a convincing image of the more workmanlike side of the Queen, more frequently seen in public, and these two aspects complimented each other perfectly. Andy Secombe and Jahvel Hall as the multi-tasking players of all the other character were each superb, nimbly swapping accepts and costumes; would you really have thought Neil Kinnock could morph into Nancy Reagan or Arthur Scargill into Ronald Reagan?
One word of caution about ‘Handbagged’. It’s a funny, entertaining piece about real people and real events but the same could be said about some episodes of Blackadder. Writer Moira Buffini has gone on record about her hatred of Thatcher and despite claims of having wanted to be fair, an element of an agenda did seem to come through.
An awful lot of what happened was referred to or even discussed but not shown fully in context. For example, the Miner’s Strike was in one sense an attempt by a Marxist-inspired Trade Union leader using the threat of pit closures to bring down a democratically elected government but this side of the strike was not really shown in the play; just relying on Thatcher’s own description of ‘the enemy within’. The events which led to a ‘Thatcher’ being elected in the first place were also generally ignored. Britain was in a dire state in 1979 and the country’s economy and international standing were transformed during the Thatcher years but the play essentially ignores this.
Shakespeare wrote great plays, including several ‘histories’ but that does not mean they should necessarily be read as fully-rounded accounts of history and the same can be said of ‘Handbagged’. Was Richard The Third really the evil uncle with the hunchback? In the same way, it is too easy to portray Thatcher as a pantomime villain (even though the audience booed her at the opening!). ‘Handbagged’ is a faithful overview of the key events of the period but to anyone who was not there (or who has not studied the period), a prequel would be needed to fully understand the issues covered in the play.
‘Handbagged’ is on until 1st June.
reviewer - John Waterhouse
on - 14/5/19
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