Writer and Director: Esalan Gates
Superimposing equality politics onto just-post-Norman Conquest England is an intriguing premise, rolled out to hilarious effect in this brand-new farce from acclaimed playwright Esalan Gates.
Coinciding serendipitously with the British Museum’s installation of the Bayeux Tapestry, which features only six women in its cast of hundreds, God Save Us! dwells on the experience of befuddled Anglo-Saxon parishioners up against new religious and legal strictures (women can’t inherit property) placed on them by their Norman oppressors. They’re still fairly Gaul-shocked, and hesitant to use the word ‘invasion’ in the same way modern-day Brits recoil at ‘Brexit’.
Radical young literate Joan (Julie Joubert) is intent on stirring up revolt to overthrow the Gallic-empowered clergy who insist on using Latin to prevent the masses from understanding the Bible and taking its bullet points on inclusion too much to heart.
The play begins with yet another incomprehensible Sunday service (“Agnus Dei? Doesn’t she live down the road?”) that provokes Joan into planning a livestock-and-peasant pincer movement on the church, placing cut-out pigs and cattle on a secretive pop-up plotting board. Impressionable sidekick Stephen (Charlie James-Howard), whose land Joan secured with her advanced reading skills, is excited at the prospect of rioting, less so at being bossed about by a girl.
They’re sussed by priestly authority figure Theodore: “Hand over the plans… not for the first time!” It’s clear he’s often crossed swords with Joan and Stephen, who want to know what he’s reading in “That big golden book… wouldn’t we be better Christians if we knew what we were worshipping about?” Theodore’s just about clinging to the power his Norman overlords have given him, abetted by his condescending, French-fluent son Nicholas, who’s actually read and absorbed the officially issued Duolingo-style ‘cahier’.
To channel Joan’s revolutionary spirit in a more acceptable direction, Theodore commissions her to write a morality play that the illiterate yokels will understand; naturally, Joan starts thinking of ways to insert items from her own agenda. Into this febrile scene wanders shapely blonde northerner Asa, intent on claiming the local land she was granted in a pre-Norman divorce settlement, but reliant on Theodore to find her paperwork in his chaotic, open-cast filing system.
If the revolting peasants and random wandering women weren’t bad enough, Theodore and Nicholas are under pressure to provide French line manager Alastair (played flawlessly ‘tout en Français’ by Joubert in a bishop’s mitre) with a well-appointed residence before ‘Dimanche soir’. Theodore has found Asa’s paperwork, and Alastair spots it, demanding the place for himself.
Nicholas sees Joan’s morality play as a vehicle for ingratiating himself with Alastair, imposing misogynistic clerical perspectives on the script, and shoehorning Asa into the role of the Virgin Mary with added French lines, hoping the locals will think she’s a Norman spy and run her out of town. The resultant ‘play within a play’ is an aisle-rollingly funny mix of high church fantasy, featuring the ‘angle’ Gabriel with his thousand-eyed wings, and radical polemic, with an ending that beautifully wraps up everyone’s narrative arcs.
All the players are natural comedians, word perfect and millimetrically aligned: this is ensemble work of the highest calibre. Although they could perhaps slow down the ‘19 to the dozen’ delivery (billed at 75 minutes, the running time is more like 60), which occasionally compromises the witty and complex banter.
Fittingly in a play emphasising women’s rights, Joubert and Lily Blunsom are the stand-out performers, making Joan impressively manic and scheming, and Asa refreshingly honest and shiningly intelligent. Xavier Atkins excels among the blokes, with impeccable comic timing and arch superciliousness.
The script is well-researched but not too academic, and the dialogue is highly amusing to modern ears while keeping the characters in a credible historical framework (there’s no resorting to current coinage for shock effect). Colourful and heraldic, Tom McVeigh’s simple set and Sarah Randall’s many-textured costumes set the tone without distracting from the action.
Seriously funny, fast-paced and imaginative – cerebral stuff that outclasses the Horrible Histories and Carry Ons – God Save Us! puts a thought-provoking slant on post-Conquest Britain and offers a reassuring reminder of the nation’s redeeming qualities: humour, ingenuity and decency.
Runs until 10 October 2026
