Luke Evans and Penelope Wilton will star in a new play from Marcelo Dos Santos which premieres at the West End this autumn.
Backstairs Billy, which explores the relationship between the Queen Mother and her servant Billy, opens at the Duke of York’s Theatre on November 7 and runs for 11 weeks. Wilton will play the Queen Mother, while Evans will play Billy. The 12 other actors who make up the cast are yet to be announced.
Michael Grandage, who most recently directed Orlando at the Garrick Theatre, and the Amazon Studios film My Policeman, starring Harry Styles, is set to direct the new comedy.
“It is always a great moment to celebrate the birth of a new comedy in the West End and particularly from an important new voice such as Marcelo Dos Santos,” said Grandage. “I am thrilled to be working again with Penelope Wilton and Luke Evans.”
Grandage, who was artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse from 2002 to 2012, last worked with Wilton on the Donmar productions The Chalk Garden (2008), John Gabriel Borkman (2007) and Hamlet (2009). Evans also performed in the Donmar productions Small Change (2008) and Piaf (2008).
I’ll be returning to London's West End in a new comedy called BACKSTAIRS BILLY (I play Billy!) with the incomparable, Dame Penelope Wilton, from Downtown Abbey, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, opening 27th of October 2023. go to https://t.co/60rMYbc1il and pickup your tickets now! pic.twitter.com/Mz0LpFnifG
— Luke Evans (@TheRealLukevans) July 5, 2023
Set in 1979, the play turns on a significant moment in the Queen Mother’s relationship with Billy. The story is based on the real-life, five-decade-long, relationship between William Tallon – who was nicknamed Backstairs Billy by the tabloids because he was Steward and Page of the Backstairs – and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
Dos Santos’ credits include Lionboy for Complicité and Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen, an award-winning monologue which the Guardian called “seriously funny” and “with some killer punchlines”.
“When I read the script, it made me giggle out loud so hard,” Evans told The Guardian. “It’s just so entertaining and such a joyous story.”
“It brings the Queen Mother into Technicolor rather than being a pastel person in pale chiffon,” said Wilton. “She suddenly becomes a very vibrant person and we see her for herself, not just for being the Queen’s mother. Billy allowed her to be who she was.”
Evans recently starred in the Bill Oliver-directed drama Our Son, which had its world premiere at New York’s Tribeca Festival in June, and in Robert Zemeckis’ 2022 live action remake of Disney’s Pinocchio. Meanwhile Wilton starred in the 2022 Downton Abbey film Downton Abbey: A New Era, and in the 2023 British drama The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, alongside Jim Broadbent.
Evans last acted on stage over a decade ago. “I want to originate a new role and tell a new story,” Evans said to The Standard in December. “When I get back on stage, I want it to be for something like that; something I can carry, and give my all to.”
