Writer: Sophie Todd
Director: Freja Gift
Like many women in history, Mary Robinson’s story has receded from view, where those of her male contemporaries have been memorialised. Living in the latter half of the 18th century, she progressed from being a teen bride to a poet and, later, an actor. She ascended to the Georgian ranks of celebrity – or at least, notoriety – after an affair with George, the Prince Regent.
Sophie Todd’s play, appearing as part of the Old Red Lion’s Shakespeare-infused mini festival Shakefest, follows Mary’s life from the age of 15, starting on the day of her wedding to clerk Thomas Robinson (Kevin Martin Murphy). The groom is swiftly revealed to be a drunken, adulterous gambler who lacks the financial stability Mary’s mother (Emma Zadow) had hoped for. While Todd plays Mary with a gently knowing, modern archness, both Murphy and Zadow rely on large, overly expressive movements and shout-led line deliveries that allow little room for character or nuance.
And that pattern continues throughout the piece. It is clear that Todd knows Robinson’s story inside out, and has found much in her biography worthy of dramatisation. As Thomas’s perilous finances send him to debtors’ prison, where he is joined by his (now 17-year-old) wife and their young daughter, it is Todd’s writing of Mary that stands out. If some of the references to Shakespearean dialogue feel a bit laboured, it is forgivable given the character’s long association with David Garrick, for whom she would go on to perform many roles.
But even within Mary’s character, there is little attempt to explore any deeper. It is in Fleet prison that she discovers her ability to write and sell poetry, using her earnings from that (and from doing the clerking work that her husband should have been doing) to pay off the family’s debts. But for a woman who became so well known for her writing (the press of the day called her “the English Sappho”), one might expect to see some exploration of her craft. Instead, we wheel ever onwards to one plot after another.
Nor is there much attempt to add more than one dimension to any of the side characters. The habit of substituting shouting for emotion continues to grate, hampering the play’s ability to engage with the worlds through which Mary moves. Rather than becoming a character study of a woman whose attitude to sex and sexuality was strikingly forthright for the age (although no different than most men’s), it instead often feels like a poor pastiche of an amateur company’s bad interpretation of Shakespeare.
Even when hitting upon some of Mary Robinson’s more famous exploits, the play pulls its punches. The affair with Prince George is virtually glossed over, moving from her consideration of the possibility to her reactions to the affair’s end. Like many a biographical play, Todd’s script seems to hamstring itself by its insistence on covering her entire life over its 90-minute duration.
The play does at least succeed in its primary goal of letting us know what an intriguing and accomplished woman Mary Robinson was. But as a person, she still remains elusive. One gets a greater sense of her personality and of the people around her from her Wikipedia entry than Perdita really affords us. And that’s a shame, because on the evidence presented, Mary Robinson is a name that deserves far greater recognition. It’s just not going to get it through this disappointing portrayal.
Runs until 7 August 2026
Camden Fringe 2026 runs until 30 August 2026
