It’s frisky and eye-rolling – and lit up by a performance that subdued this least monarchical of critics. Backstairs Billy, a fictional frolic based on the relationship between the late Queen Mother and William Tallon, her servant for more than 50 years, makes no claim to historical revelation. Still, it is more than a caper. Set in 1979, Marcelo Dos Santos’s new play glances at a country on the cusp of Thatcherite change; it finds in its characters two apparent opposites yoked by mutual dependence – and by ricocheting puns.
Inside Clarence House, corgis waddle (and worse) across a rug that is off-limits to servants. Outside, there are riots in Southall (ah, muses the QM, “South Hall” – haven’t we just had it repainted?). At teatime, Billy is busy lacing the drinks of teetotallers; at night, he and his fellow servants scamper through corridors half naked, sometimes with rent boys. “Queen” is not the only word that does some heavy lifting; “backstairs” drifts insinuatingly across the action. When an ex-deb yells about coming out, the conversation pings electrically.
