Writer: Daisy Goodwin
Director: Dominic Dromgoole
The Queen is dead – and so is GG’s career. Back in the Queen’s private rooms after the funeral, GG her trusted Dresser and personal aide for decades, discovers that the locks to the jewel cupboard have been changed while she’s been saying her last goodbye. While she’s long planned what the Queen’s final outfit will be, she’s not given much thought to her own future.
She doesn’t have much time to think about it before a perky young woman appears, a Curator (Gráinne Dromgoole) planning an ‘immersive experiential exhibition’ about how the Queen (Anne Reid) felt wearing all her eye-catching outfits. She won’t rest until GG (Caroline Quentin) has shared her archive of outfits, swatches and designs, a repository of memories that GG isn’t yet ready to part with. As GG recalls the times and places – all with their meticulously selected dresses, coats, hats, shoes and jewels – the play travels through the years, tracing the highs and lows of the Queen’s reign.
GG is clearly inspired by Angela Kelly, the Queen’s long-time Dresser and confidante, and takes some of its personal details – like having people break in new shoes for her – from Kelly’s autobiography. Prince Harry called her a ‘troublemaker’ in his own book and her forthright, outspoken personality is echoed in the fictional GG, making her the most interesting character in the play. Quentin’s portrayal of a woman who has given everything to the job, dealt with a difficult boss, and is left with nothing is really quite poignant.
Quentin’s performance, though, is the highlight of what is a rather dull and static play. It has a repetitive and tedious structure. Every scene consists the Curator/Narrator announcing a year, giving a list of momentous and flippant things that hit the headlines, followed by the arrival of the Designer (Jeremy Drakes) and Milliner (James Dreyfus) who bicker a bit while they wait for the Queen, and the presentation of their latest creations. While there’s occasional witty dialogue, it’s sandwiched in between a lot of pointless filler, making the play drag at two hours long.
The visuals don’t help. The set (Jonathan Fensom) is stolid and while this reflects the old fashioned and rather bland decor of royal palaces, it’s also ironically rather flimsy. The door frames wobble like something out of a cheap 1970s sitcom. There’s an attempt to give the set a bit of a lift with projections of photos of the Queen wearing some of the outfits, but the brighter stage lighting (Oliver Fenwick) makes them hard to make out in any detail. The blocking also has an old fashioned and tired feel to it with a lot of coming and going, opening and closing of doors, sitting down and standing up. What really is unforgivable, though, given what the play has to say about the power of clothes, is that the few garments we see hang limply on mannequins or are draped carelessly about on furniture. A Milliner would never toss a newly craft hat about like Dreyfus does, making it all rather unconvincing. Reid’s ill-fitting dress would surely make a royal designer weep.
While you might expect the performances to elevate the production – given it’s experienced and well-known cast, they have a hard time keeping up the pace. Quentin puts in a convincing performance when she gets the chance, but she’s often left hovering in the background, left out of the conversation. Reid has some poignant moments portraying the Queen in her later years when the play speaks of her stoicism and her loneliness, but is much less convincing in earlier scenes as the younger Queen. The Milliner and Designer are rather one-dimensional camp characters who surely lack the professional gravitas you would need to keep hold of a Royal Warrant of Appointment for any length of time. Neither Drakes nor Wilby have much to work with.
Given the amount of TV and film hours – in drama and documentary – and the hefty biographies and autobiographies given over to looking behind the scenes within the royal family, By Royal Appointment fails to add anything that hasn’t already been forensically raked over. And it does it with a lack of wit or drama that makes it a rather tiresome watch.
Runs until 9 August 2025
