Emma Palmer, Elizabeth Blackmore and Matthew Backer: Photo: Phil Erbacher.
Melanie Tait’s new play is a comedy drama centred on Marion ‘Crawfie’ Crawford, the dedicated nanny/governess to the two little girls who would become better known to the world as Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. Those who have an inkling of Crawfie’s life will know that, and also that she was cast into ‘the outer darkness’ when she dared to write a memoir – one that, by all accounts, we would now consider innocuous – about her 16 years of faithful service to both the girls and their parents, who segued from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor into King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during Crawfie’s employment with ‘The Firm’.
One of the things that makes this play so enjoyable is the great performances from the cast of three – Emma Palmer as the Queen (slightly sozzled a lot of the time, determined to have fun, and a half-an-hour a day mother to her children; definitely the ‘baddie’ here); Elizabeth Blackmore as Crawfie (a far more nuanced character, given the scope of Tait’s script); and Matthew Backer (who is quite extraordinary, both in the range of the characters he plays – king, butler, Crawfie’s husband George Buthlay (whom she married after her retirement from the royals), and the brash Aussie newspaper reporter who is determined to tell the now ostracised and lonely governess a few home truths as well as tell us her story – and his execution of those roles.) Backer segues, seemingly effortlessly, from one persona to another: a flick of a napkin and he’s switched from butler into a slightly hunched King George, a stammer later and he’s our newshound… and so on. Even more surprisingly, he gives us a very credible, horse-crazy Princess Elizabeth. It was a joy to watch him.
Which is not to detract from Blackmore’s own excellent portrayal of Crawfie. Marion Crawford did not set her cap at royal servitude. The way Tait tells it, she saw the position as temporary summer job as she had ambitions to be a psychologist and a teacher, but she (apparently) felt an immediate affinity with the then five-year-old Elizabeth Windsor. And so she stayed, putting off her own marriage plans and motherhood, until she was put out to pasture (or into a grace and favour cottage at Kensington Palace) when Princess Elizabeth married her beau, the future Duke of Edinburgh.
And then the trouble started. Was Crawfie pushed into writing a memoir by her somewhat pushy husband? Did she really not know that Queen Elizabeth (the mother, not the about to be queen regnant) had forbidden her to do it under her own name? Was it that she didn’t read the small print on the publishing contract? Was she that naive? Accounts will vary if you bother to do the research, but you can sit back and enjoy this Ensemble version, which is credible enough and shows the sacrifices Marion Crawford made for her royal charges. And as the Australian tabloid reporter, Backer’s character takes a few well aimed shots at royal privilege, the exorbitant cost of the monarchy, and how they do (or don’t) treat their staff.
‘The Queen’s Nanny is a story of class and colonialism,’ says Tait, ‘a play I hope will encourage discussion around the country about where Australia needs to go in the future. Through Crawfie, we are invited into conversations about how stories handed down through history are shaped by the powerful.’ ‘Twas ever thus.
Tait’s dialogue is snappy and witty; and Priscilla Jackman’s fine direction keeps everything crackling along crisply. Michael Hankin’s stage design is clean and playful. A nearly bare stage, infused with a cool blue light (royal? Maybe, but also perhaps a note to cool behaviour) has a couple of streamlined pseudo-thrones and some little models of palaces (one of which becomes decidedly lopsided after World War II). Occasionally a miniature royal train rattles overhead, on its way to or from Balmoral.
Only one thing jarred throughout this thoroughly entertaining 90 minute show, and it will only jar with those old enough to remember pre-decimalisation. Crawfie, educating the little Princess Elizabeth on coinage, refers to a 6p, not a sixpence. A very minor quibble (my 10 cents worth?) about what is a hugely enjoyable show. Recommended.
The Queen’s Nanny runs until 12 October
Tickets $43-$95
https://www.ensemble.com.au
