Review: BLOODY MARY AND THE NINE DAY QUEEN at Union Theatre

Any musical which literally opens with the line “Caught between a rock and a hard place…” (and repeats it frequently throughout) has virtually sealed its fate before it has had a chance to get going. Unfortunately things go from bad to worse, descending quickly into corny pastiche with an extended puerile history lesson in which the sickly Edward VI is portrayed by means of a tiny puppet with a squeaky voice. The cast flip-flop between an excess of earnestness and Carry-On jolly japes, so it’s never clear whether the writer Gareth Hides (with Anna Unwin) and director Adam Stone intended this to be a comedy, a serious historical rendering, or a Tudor Hamilton. Whatever the case, the end result currently on display at the Union Theatre is suffering an identity crisis of epic proportions, despite the best efforts of the performers and a terrific little trio of musicians trying their absolute damnedest to keep us distracted.

It’s often easy to nitpick with fringe venue efforts, because they’re usually mounted with minimal budget and can appear a little cobbled together, but that is not the issue here. A simple Tudor Rose pennant adorns the back wall and a chunky wooden throne and executioner’s block serve to provide visual points of focus. Job done on the set front. Even the costumes worn by the five cast members (which include Hides and Unwin) are a step-up from the usual and more than adequately convey Tudor opulence in tailoring. So the production budget, courtesy of a Crowdfunder campaign, appears to have been adequate.

The reason this musical simply doesn’t work, is fundamental to the writing. The show feels like a first draft which no-one has ever speculated could be made infinitely sharper by cutting 40minutes of extraneous filler songs and unnecessarily pious reprises. The beauty of anything to do with the Tudors is that virtually everyone will already know the history, so it is unnecessarily didactic to treat every single tidbit of info as vital for inclusion. Choose an angle and tell the story with a definable style, instead of including absolutely everything and ending up with a mish-mash of back-to-back bitty scenes, played from ultra serious to immature goofing.

This interminable musical treatment of Lady Jane Grey’s rise and fall from grace, failed spectacularly by managing to feel longer than the monarch’s nine day reign. When an audience member whispers “Please make it stop” half an hour before it finally concluded, you have to take the hint and pare back to the essentials. Now, hand me the score and red pen.

Cast:
Cezarah Bonner — successfully coming across as an unbearable diva, as Mary.
Anna Unwin — managing to look like a young Kate Winslet, as Jane.
Johnnie Benson — getting the show’s best song Faithful (in a duet with Jane), while playing her husband, Guildford Dudley.
Constantine Andronikou — delivering impressive tenor notes and questionable comedy, as Northumberland.
Gareth Hides — A fine baritone beneath a mix of robes and sackcloth, as Henry Grey and John Feckenham.

Continues at Union Theatre until 29th October.