Handbagged – Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

Writer: Moira Buffini

Director: Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder

There seem to be a good few plays these days based on imaginary conversations between the great and the good, but a glance at the cast list shows Handbagged to be rather different. T and Q represent Margaret Thatcher and the Queen in later life (i.e. after Thatcher’s eviction from the Premiership); their younger selves are rather disrespectfully dubbed Mags and Liz; and Moira Buffini’s masterstroke comes with the creation of Actors 1 and 2, filling in all the other parts.

These two actors are of a distinctly left-wing persuasion, arguing over events that are omitted (the Toxteth riots, for example), refusing to play the part of Enoch Powell, falling out over who’s to play Neil Kinnock and brought to heel only when their contracts are brought up. Their sometimes unwilling presence is a constant reminder that we are watching a play. Deven Modha and Simon Darwen are never realistically convincing, announcing who they are and making much of assuming a cap or a tie, but they are huge fun, with Modha’s Nancy alongside Darwen’s complacent Ronald Reagan as camp as it gets!

Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder stays closer to reality with her pairs of protagonists. Katie Scott provides an elegantly simple setting of ascending circles to frame the action. Alexandra Mathie as T, visibly diminished, but still in perfect vocal control, enters slowly to state her philosophy and long for a chair. When one is offered, she refuses it – and thus the character is established. She is joined by a much more benign Q (Meriel Scholfield) and we are ready for a serio-comic whistle-stop tour of Thatcher’s years in power, with the older duo commenting wryly on events or refuting their existence.

Pandora Clifford (Mags) has all the energy and certainty of Mrs Thatcher in her prime, laying down the law forcefully, refusing to admit opposed views, as she takes on Gerry Adams, Arthur Scargill, President Galtieri, Neil Kinnock and the rest – including, finally, her own party. Liz Garland (Liz) proves a doughty opponent, though this reviewer was not the only one to find difficulty following her authentically strangled vowels.

The question always lurking behind the regular Thatcher-Queen meetings is always just how far the Queen opposed her belligerent Prime Minister. Buffini uses the scathing aside to great effect, but it’s difficult to see the Queen as a true democrat, despite the pious statements in her speeches and broadcasts: Thatcher is given the opportunity to point out (not to Her Majesty, of course) that the Queen was the richest woman in the world and paid no tax.

At the end of a highly entertaining evening, you wonder whether Buffini’s sympathies lie not with Queen or P.M., but with the two actors forced to bottle up their socialist views behind the deferential smirk of a footman or the vapid uxoriousness of Dennis Thatcher.

Runs until 29 August 2026, before transferring to Theatr Clwyd from 15 to 26 September 2026