The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – Liverpool Everyman Theatre

Writer: Hilary Mantel 

Adapter: Alexandra Wood 

Director: John Young 

Hilary Mantel’s controversial short story was inspired by a real-life moment in 1983, when she glimpsed Margaret Thatcher leaving hospital after eye surgery from an upstairs window in Windsor. The result is a tense stand-off between an IRA gunman and the woman whose flat serves as a perfect sniper’s vantage point. Difficulties in pairing the two characters meant it remained unpublished until 2014, after the former prime minister’s death.

Alexandra Wood’s first-ever adaptation for the Everyman explores the condensed lyricism of the original, developing the uncertain relationship into a gripping psychological duel. The play opens like a sitcom as Caroline, played by Anita Reynolds, potters around her Windsor flat, taking refuge from the media circus outside. When there is a knock at the door, she mistakes Brendan’s assassin’s kit for a plumber’s tools and invites him in – breaking the golden rule of vampire lore.

Robbie O’Neill’s Brendan is working-class, Scouse and menacing, taking delight in her nervous small talk. Misunderstandings are played for laughs until the rifle is revealed. He means Caroline no harm, provided she lets him get on with the job. When she questions his motives, he attacks her middle-class sensibilities. But Caroline, a divorced Black woman whose father fought in the Second World War, bristles at his presumed monopoly on suffering.

He voices grievances – Thatcher’s hard line on the hunger strikers, mass unemployment in Liverpool. She probes them, but is no defender of the Iron Lady, recalling her ruthlessness during the Falklands War. They share common ground but remain divided where it matters: his belief in the assassin as an agent of history against her view of Tory power as a Hydra – cut off one head and two grow back. Or, kill Maggie and you end up with Willie Whitelaw, as she warns.

Robbie O’Neill and Anita Reynolds deliver impressive performances throughout. His implacable revolutionary is quick-witted and driven; she combines instinctive humanity with a sharp wit that often cuts her captor down to size. When Brendan quotes W.B. Yeats in support of the hunger strike, Caroline points to the Irish poet’s spiritualism, a suggestion that the future can be controlled.

Ceci Calf’s simple set comes to life and the space becomes a cacophony of sound and light, a visceral assault on the senses that brings home the enormity of what Brendan intends to do.  There are plenty of surprises as it hurtles to a conclusion and receives a standing ovation.

The show is simply billed as Two people. One window. One gun, but Wood’s nuanced adaptation and and Young’s direction combine to produce something far more complex and thought-provoking. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher is a provocative, funny and, at times, thrilling tale of democracy and political violence which confines itself to the vision and timeframe of the original yet still feels contemporary.

Runs until 23 May 2026