IT HAS been a topsy-turvy year for the Royals, what with the Jubilee, the Queen getting thrown out of a helicopter, and Prince Harry's bottom seared across the papers.
So it seems like an apt time for this raucous and irreverent play imagining an answer to a small yet gigantic question: What would happen if the Queen simply said, "I've had enough"?
It's not only that the Queen in Long Live The Mad Parade is bored (she has, after all, only presided over a World Cup and a few Eurovision wins compared to her ancestors' World Wars], but her family seems to be mere tabloid fodder and she feels no connection to her subjects.
It rests on her, she decides, to end this dismal situation; her subjects, frankly, are too lazy and not-bothered to do so themselves.
What follows is a dark but very funny farce in which the Queen's bumbling courtiers - and a hard-nosed hack - prove themselves rather less apathetic than HRM might have hoped.
Written by BBC Radio 4 writer David Spicer and directed by John Schwab, this new play was chiselled into shape at the Freshly Fired theatre writing programme at Fairfield Halls.
That many-heads approach may help explain some of the daring scenes that had the audience in stitches, including heroin in the Lord Chamberlain's bottom and Americans signing 'the Queen's' arm.
Jeremy Clyde from Downton Abbey has some of the funniest and Yes Minister-style lines among a cast who looked to be having an awfully good time with the witty dialogue and physical comedy.
They include Johanne Murdock as the story-hungry reporter who adds an extra dimension of doom, and Beatrice Rose as the chambermaid anointed a Duchess as the British class system unravels along with the Queen.
The Queen herself would be impossible to cast, of course, so it is probably wise that she never appears in the play, all of which takes place outside of her chamber.
Instead, she appears through other characters perfectly mimicking her clipped tones, her silk-gloved hand poking out of her chamber door, and a splattering of her royal blue blood.
Whatever your thoughts on this play's dark ending - and most seemed to love it - the journey there is jolly good fun.
Long Live The Mad Parade premiered on Wednesday at Fairfield Halls. Its last performance is tonight, at 7.45pm. To book or for more information, phone the box office on 020 8688 9291 or visit www.fairfield.co.uk
So it seems like an apt time for this raucous and irreverent play imagining an answer to a small yet gigantic question: What would happen if the Queen simply said, "I've had enough"?
It's not only that the Queen in Long Live The Mad Parade is bored (she has, after all, only presided over a World Cup and a few Eurovision wins compared to her ancestors' World Wars], but her family seems to be mere tabloid fodder and she feels no connection to her subjects.
It rests on her, she decides, to end this dismal situation; her subjects, frankly, are too lazy and not-bothered to do so themselves.
What follows is a dark but very funny farce in which the Queen's bumbling courtiers - and a hard-nosed hack - prove themselves rather less apathetic than HRM might have hoped.
Written by BBC Radio 4 writer David Spicer and directed by John Schwab, this new play was chiselled into shape at the Freshly Fired theatre writing programme at Fairfield Halls.
That many-heads approach may help explain some of the daring scenes that had the audience in stitches, including heroin in the Lord Chamberlain's bottom and Americans signing 'the Queen's' arm.
Jeremy Clyde from Downton Abbey has some of the funniest and Yes Minister-style lines among a cast who looked to be having an awfully good time with the witty dialogue and physical comedy.
They include Johanne Murdock as the story-hungry reporter who adds an extra dimension of doom, and Beatrice Rose as the chambermaid anointed a Duchess as the British class system unravels along with the Queen.
The Queen herself would be impossible to cast, of course, so it is probably wise that she never appears in the play, all of which takes place outside of her chamber.
Instead, she appears through other characters perfectly mimicking her clipped tones, her silk-gloved hand poking out of her chamber door, and a splattering of her royal blue blood.
Whatever your thoughts on this play's dark ending - and most seemed to love it - the journey there is jolly good fun.
Long Live The Mad Parade premiered on Wednesday at Fairfield Halls. Its last performance is tonight, at 7.45pm. To book or for more information, phone the box office on 020 8688 9291 or visit www.fairfield.co.uk
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