By Royal Appointment – The Lowry

The month of August in the world of theatre traditionally tends to be quiet, with eyes turned towards Edinburgh and the delights of the Festival and Fringe. It was therefore a surprise to see ‘By Royal Appointment’ drop into my inbox for review this month; a show with a stellar cast; fantastic director and written by a prominent television writer making her first foray into work on the stage. Unfortunately, the combined efforts of such talent merely result in a pedestrian, obvious and lacklustre production which reminded me of the description of the camel as ‘a horse designed by a committee’.

Daisy Goodwin is no stranger to writing about the private lives of the Royal family, her ITV series ‘Victoria’ was a huge worldwide success, and she has chosen familiar ground with her first produced play. The late Elizabeth II was famously tight-lipped in expressing any opinion in public, political, social or personal. Therefore, Goodwin uses ‘By Royal Appointment’ to look at our longest-reigning monarch’s tenure through the lens of the clothes and hats she wore. The semiotics of dress allow her to construct a commentary on the social history of the United Kingdom over the last sixty years, and act as a method to infer the mood and opinion of the Monarch on events during that period.

Interesting as this idea is, the execution is sadly lacking in any spark of originality with the premise quickly falling into a boring pattern. Narrator (Grainne Dromgoole) introduces a year with quirky facts; a specific outfit is discussed and the semiotic reason for the choice of outfit is examined. This repeats ad nauseum from the 1969 Investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales through to the death of the Queen over fifty years later, repetition so tedious that by the conclusion of this two-hour production I felt I had relived the period in its entirety.

Part of the issue was that large chunks of this history have been covered far better on both stage and television by the estimable Peter Morgan, firstly in ‘The Queen’, “The Audience’ and most comprehensively with six seasons of ‘The Crown’. Surveying the audience of Royalist loyalists this evening, I guarantee most will have devoured all these programmes and large tracts rehashed the topics covered with nothing new learned. Is it really a shock to find the Queen disliked Diana and Wallis Simpson? The writing constantly drowned any subtle metaphor the clothing was designed to make, signposting the points it made with obvious ‘on the nose’ explanation that was patronising to the audience in its simplicity.

Director Dominic Dromgoole managed to add to the confusion with his staging and casting decisions. The set remained static throughout with large curtains to the rear invoking a palace drawing room, a choice that made the backdrop projections virtually impossible to discern in the cavernous Lyric Theatre. Given that the clothes were such an integral part of the production, the mini mannequins wheeled on and off stage were pathetic in stature and were inadequate as a central motif. Strangest of all was the choice to maintain both main characters as the same age throughout. Elizabeth (Anne Reid) and her Dresser (Caroline Quentin) presented as elderly and middle-aged throughout, despite a chronology that took them through nearly sixty years. No concession was made which added to the limited effects in set, costume and lighting giving the impression of a very limited budget spent extremely unwisely.

Maybe the money was spent on the salaries of the stellar cast assembled to enact this muddled production. Reid is a fantastic actress and brings warmth and humanity to the monarch whilst Quentin hints at Machiavellian steel in the role of the ‘working class girl made good’ Dresser, her influence over the Queen steadily growing during her half-century tenure. Supported by James Wilby and Jeremy Drakes as ‘The Designer’ and ‘The Milliner’ who deserved better lines than the Queeny (pun intended) bitching they were given; the dialogue often sounded more like a dated 1970s sitcom than a play conceived in the 21st century.

The Producers will no doubt be delighted with the excellent advance ticket sales and packed houses this show has played to on its short tour. However, the locations it played prior to staunchly working-class Salford (Malvern, Cheltenham, Bath and Guildford) demonstrate the target demographic for this production more eloquently than I can ever hope to describe and any success could not be attributed to artistic merit.

Verdict: Badly structured, poorly written, muddled direction, hugely disappointing.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 6th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: