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Fiona Mountford's rating
, Untitled is same old story
By
Fiona Mountford
9 Feb 2009
Does the world really need another drama about Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII? Almost certainly not but here Untitled is, raking once more, to no startling effect, over the 1936 abdication crisis and its ripple-down-the-decades consequences.
South African playwright Lena Farugia takes us to Paris in the late Seventies, where Wallis (Nichola McAuliffe) is a delusional old woman under virtual house arrest. She keeps muddling her butler Douglas (Patrick Ryecart) with her late husband and slipping from her wretchedness into reminiscences of past glories.
If it weren’t for the elegant, excellent McAuliffe, bearing herself with the regal mien of the Queen she never was, we too would want to abdicate long before the interval. As it is, Farugia and director Peter Cregeen have us ponder half-heartedly whether it was Wallis’s divorcee status, or her peppy American-ness, that most irked the House of Windsor. Even so, this topic has been done to death.
Untitled until 14 March (0844 847 1652, www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
