★★★
Two Queens stand before me—and two Margaret Thatchers too. The Queen Theatre’s revival of Moira Buffini’s popular 2013 play Handbagged takes us behind closed doors, imagining scenes which took place weekly but which nobody was ever privy to—the former Prime Minister’s weekly meetings with Queen Elizabeth—and smartly shows the two women at opposing ends of the eighties, with two actors playing each version. This new rendition is conveniently timed around the fiftieth anniversary of the Iron Lady becoming Conservative Party leader, and manages to humanise the pair in ways other productions rarely manage.
For an actor, playing either Thatcher or the Queen is both an easy job and an immeasurable challenge. These twentieth century icons possess such recognisable mannerisms, it’s almost impossible to do a bad impression of them, but they also arrive to an audience with such familiarity and baggage, there’s a specific demand upon the actor to get it right. This is particularly so in the case of Thatcher, such a polarising politician, both termagant and saviour of Britain depending on who you ask. It’s a testament to the script that responsibilities are divided across different actors, but also to the actors in question—Morag Cross, Sarah Moyle, Emma Ernest and Helen Reuben—who succeed in making them watchable throughout, regardless of what preconceived opinions we hold as the lights dim. There’s great comic timing in the way they conduct themselves and marked differences between the older and younger versions of each. Rumours of bristliness between the two of them are addressed and dextrously played—this relationship was evidently a complicated one, with twin degrees of conflict and respect—all handled commendably throughout.
The two supporting actors, Gerard McDermott (Reasons To Be Cheerful) and Cassius Konneh are equally brilliant. Their job is to portray the other characters the monarch and PM come into contact with during Thatcher’s tenure—as far-ranging as Michael Heseltine and Ronald Reagan (McDermott, superb) to Enoch Powell (Konneh, who refuses to play him) and even, at one point, Nancy Reagan. Their interactions with the rest of the cast are well-pitched and brilliantly humorous and there’s a meta-theatricality to it all where they complain about the roles they’ve been given or fight over others, both eager to play Kinnock and showcase their accent chops.
Katie Lias’ set design is starkly unique. A mounted circular platform for the two leads to stride, a giant pound coin with the monarch’s silhouette on it raised above them. Tilted, this enormous set piece often looks as if it’s going to crush the pair of them, perhaps intentionally—a metaphor? Is the Queen ready to crush Thatcher, Thatcher her, or the two their subjects/electorate? Why not all three? There are moments when the silhouette visibly shifts to look like Thatcher’s steely profile, and it’s a great way to showcase the shifting dynamics of power between these two—hereditary versus elected. Being in either of these positions, elected or not, doesn’t always suggest popularity, and the play knows it.
Musical elements, consisting of 70s and 80s songs like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ and ‘We Are Family’ help situate the play in whichever time period it’s intended to depict. We get a few refrains of them from the actors during scene changes, and these don’t always land—namely, the Thatchers and Queens waving American flags at the entrance of Ronald Reagan. They feel a little jarring in what is otherwise a music-free play, but by the time we’ve reached the 90s and they’re singing ‘Zombie’, you’re accustomed to it. It’s moments like this that the play feels like it would benefit from a more intimate setting than the Queens’ Theatre, which feels overly large to deal with a play of this scope.
Handbagged does not shy away from Thatcher’s, but like so many dramatisations of a Prime Minister’s entire tenure, key events are condensed and glossed over, for the sake of time if anything. But why watch a drama about Thatcher in the first place? Evidently, we’re still hugely fascinated by her. This is not the only Thatcher piece out there this month, with Channel 4’s drama Brian and Maggie hitting screens in late January. The purpose of many a piece of drama about either of these women, from The Iron Lady to The Crown, lives and dies on what it tells us about today. There are numerous instances in Handbagged that draws parallels to situations we’re still enduring now—the play is a 2013 product looking back on the 80s, and yet it says a great deal about 2025.
The thing about her was how merciless she seemed, how robotic, lacking in the qualities that make a person human. Compassion and empathy seemed to be inconvenient traits she had to jettison in order to attain power, yet somehow, the Queen retained these whilst holding immense power, if the hereditary kind. The script, like many scripts about Thatcher or the Queen, attempts to remind us of their humanity, even referring to them as “Liz” and “Magz” in the script. Even the title alone, referring to handbags, highlights the pair of them carrying an accessory no male leader has ever had. Despite their differing roles, the Queen perhaps felt this burden as greatly as Thatcher, and for that reason, it will always be an intriguing relationship to explore onstage.
Handbagged will be performed at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch until 22 February before embarking on a UK tour.
Words by James Morton
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