The charmingly fusty environs of Wilton’s Music Hall play host to one of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe successes - THE CROWN DUAL - a frenetic, sometimes slapstick homage to (and parody of), the Netflix multi-award winning drama about the royals.Rosie Holt (with a little help from the audience), delivers Beth, a young actress who bemoans losing-out to Claire Foy for the lead role of Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, and instead presents her own spoofed stage version of the television series. Her steadfastly plummy tones are counterpointed by Stanley, Beth’s agent, who conjures a cacophony of characters - everyone from Churchill and Charles to the Consort by way of the corgis and extras charged with crowning as Canterbury at the Coronation. All are played by Brendan Murphy (again, with a little help from audience members).
Directed by Owen Lewis and penned by Daniel Clarkson (who has previously given us Potted Potter and Potted Panto), the zaniness, ceaseless energy, corny gags and costume changes -- conducted behind the draped red velvet curtain of the throne room — doesn’t let-up for a moment. Perspiration and exhaustion is writ large on the faces of the two performers by the end - and not an insignificant number of audience members too!
Grab a ticket if you like your theatre full-on, farcical and frenetic... and if you’re shy, don’t book seats too close to the front rows!
