Burlesque at best

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2019)

The play QUEEN ANNE* enjoyed a successful 4 week run on the London fringe during July and August 2014. It coincided with the 300th anniversary of the death of Queen Anne. She died on 1st August 1714. Since then, various organisations have jumped on the Queen Anne bandwagon including the makers of the film THE FAVOURITE.
I saw THE FAVOURITE a couple of nights ago. Much of the acting was excellent. The settings and costume were splendid and elegant. One recognised Hampton Court. The dialogue was, at times, witty.
It is normal in historical movies and plays to focus on one or two aspects of the real history and ignore the rest. This is spectacularly the case in THE FAVOURITE. No-one really knows whether Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill and Mrs Masham were bi-sexual. In a way, this is unimportant. Anne was very lonely especially after the death of her much loved husband George of Denmark. She was vulnerable. Male friendships were tricky for a queen; hence female friendships were more intense.
The sadness is that the success of Anne's reign has been passed over. She transformed herself from a person with an under confident dependency on the wily but beautiful Sarah Churchill to a queen, worthy of being the final incumbent of the house of Stuart. She saved England from yet another civil war by helping to guarantee the Protestant succession in the persona of George I of Hanover. While he may not have been the most charismatic of kings, he was a far better choice than the "Old Pretender - James Stuart -father of the more famous Bonnie Prince Charlie of later years. If he had succeeded Anne, civil war would have followed. The English Civil war finished in 1660 a mere 5 years before Anne's birth, so it was still much in everyone's minds. People were still talking about it and suffering the damage done in its aftermath to society and family and economy.
In comparison with this giant omission, fictitious fabrications such as Anne's keeping of seventeen rabbits to represent her seventeen dead children or the attempted poisoning/ murder of Sarah Churchill by Mrs Masham are mere banalities. But it leaves one saddened; saddened that the character of a courageous woman should be so travestied: she cannot fight back. She is dead. People knew little about her before THE FAVOURITE was aired. I am not sure that they have been appropriately enlightened.
Kate Glover
(*In the interests of transparency, Kate Glover acknowledges that she is the author of the play QUEEN ANNE, premiered on the London Fringe and directed by Kenneth Michaels in July/August 2014. The production was timed to coincide with the tercentenary of Queen Anne's death on 1st August 1714)