"Backstairs Billy" is "the best new play about the royals" since Peter Morgan's smash-hit "The Audience", said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Packed with witty lines, it imagines the relationship between the late Queen Mother and William "Billy" Tallon, the flamboyant Clarence House steward (an "elevated Coventry commoner") who was her trusted right-hand man for many decades.
Marcelo Dos Santos's comedy has shades of both Noël Coward and Joe Orton, said Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times. He weaves together farcical shenanigans (in one sequence, Billy passes off a pick-up from the night before as a visiting African prince) with "nimble dialogue, a keen sense of absurdity and traces of tenderness too". The two leads – Penelope Wilton as the Queen Mother and Luke Evans as Billy – are superb. And it's very funny – it made me "laugh more than any other play this year".
Still, it is a very odd affair, said Sarah Crompton on What's on Stage. The play has all the trappings of a West End hit: "zinging one-liners"; a sumptuous set; "Rolls-Royce" casting. But "for the life of me, I couldn't work out why I was watching it or what it was really about". In other hands, it might have developed into either a "sensitive and amusing study of the bonds that can grow between servant and mistress", or an exploration of why people love the fallible royals. Instead, it "ricochets off into a messy mixture of farce, politics and class critique" while veering wildly in tone.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Having brought his characters nicely into focus, Dos Santos seems to have been "uncertain what to do with them", agreed Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard. The play's "worshipful approach" to the Queen Mother doesn't help, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. The arrival of corgis onstage raises "ahhhhs" and it "all slips down easily", but there's no "emotional underpinning". At one point, the Queen Mother explains that "she likes TV comedy where people do accents and walk into things". This "anodyne" drama would surely have been right up her street.
Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)
Sign up to The Week's Arts & Life newsletter for reviews and recommendations.
-
Scorching hot sauces that pack a punchThe Week Recommends The best sauces to tingle your lips and add a fiery kick to your food
-
Syria’s strange post-Assad electionThe Explainer Sunday’s limited vote ‘suited the phase Syria is undergoing’, says interim president
-
Why did the China spying case collapse?Today’s Big Question Unwillingness to call China an ‘enemy’ apparently scuppered espionage trial
-
Mustardy beans and hazelnuts recipeThe Week Recommends Nod to French classic offers zingy, fresh taste
-
Susie Dent picks her favourite booksThe Week Recommends The lexicographer and etymologist shares works by Jane Goodall, Noel Streatfeild and Madeleine Pelling
-
6 incredible homes under $1 millionFeature Featuring a home in the National Historic Landmark District of Virginia and a renovated mid-century modern house in Washington
-
The Harder They Come: ‘triumphant’ adaptation of cinema classicThe Week Recommends ‘Uniformly excellent’ cast follow an aspiring musician facing the ‘corruption’ of Kingston, Jamaica
-
House of Guinness: ‘rip-roaring’ Dublin brewing dynasty period dramaThe Week Recommends The Irish series mixes the family tangles of ‘Downton’ and ‘Succession’ for a ‘dark’ and ‘quaffable’ watch
-
Dead of Winter: a ‘kick-ass’ hostage thrillerThe Week Recommends Emma Thompson plays against type in suspenseful Minnesota-set hair-raiser ‘ringing with gunshots’
-
A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?Talking Point Dominated by middle-aged authors, this year’s list is a return to ‘good old-fashioned literary fiction’
-
Fractured France: an ‘informative and funny’ enquiryThe Week Recommends Andrew Hussey's work is a blend of ‘memoir, travelogue and personal confession’
