Mike Bartlett’s clever future history play is the best and wittiest British play about a constitutional crisis since the premiere of Bernard Shaw’s The Applecart in 1928. The surprise is that it is written in blank verse. The dialogue is in cod-Shakespearian iambics and there are references to Hamlet, Richard II, Henry IV and even Macbeth.
The performance opens with Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and is set in the days leading up to the coronation. The Labour government wants Charles to sign an act of parliament which restricts the freedom of the press. He refuses to do so and then ups the stakes by dissolving parliament and calling for an election. Some members of the audience presume they are meant to laugh and behave as if they are watching Spitting Image. The play is amusing but it is essential serious, emotionally and intellectually, and it raises serious issues. Charles is sympathetically portrayed and finely acted by Tim Piggott-Smith.
Oliver Chris looks so like Prince William it is uncanny. William is torn between his love for his father and his duty to his country. There is a magnificent tirade when Charles accuses him of siding with his mother against him. Kate (Lydia Wilson), ambitious and manipulative, is no plastic doll. Harry (Richard Goulding) wants to be a commoner and falls in love with a dead common art student. The Ghost of Diana appears and tells both Charles and William that he will be the greatest king.
Rupert Goold’s highly entertaining production is acted on a stripped bare stage with a raised purple dais. The acting is exemplary throughout. The final scene carries an unexpected tragic punch.