London currently has two shows based on the life of Nell Gwyn. There is Jessica Swale’s Nell Gwynn recently transferred to the Apollo, starring Gemma Arterton, who takes over the title role from Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with a cast of sixteen. In their description of the production, reviews make much use of ‘rowdy’, ‘rip-roaring’ and ‘rollicking’.
Criticks, however, was interested to see what promised to be an altogether more dignified affair, with songs by Henry Purcell and a cast of just two: The Restoration of Nell Gwyn, written by Steve Trafford and directed by Damian Cruden, which recently opened at the Park Theatre in Finsbury.
The play is set in 1685 as Charles II lies dying. We are in the room of Nell (played by Elizabeth Mansfield) as she reflects anxiously on her future now her career as royal mistress is over. The other character is the fictional Margery, maid to Nell, played with down-to-earth charm by Angela Curran. Margery gets most of the comic lines, delivering sardonic comments to the audience in the first part of the play. But the part itself is rather too obviously a structural device. Although Margery has been Nell’s maid for five years, this is apparently the first time the pair have ever discussed Nell’s rise from orange-seller to star comic actress. Margery tells us that Nell was lying when she claimed she remembered the Great Plague. Given Nell was a teenager at the time, it seems unlikely she’d have forgotten about it. It is, of course, a creaky means by which the dramatist can inform us of the historical background. So from Nell, we learn about the re-opening of theatres during the Restoration, Charles’s licensing of two theatre companies and the legalising of female actresses, not to mention fire and plague.
Then there’s Nell herself. We know Samuel Pepys delighted in ‘pretty, witty Nell’, loving her comic performance as Florimel in Dryden’s The Maiden Queen so much that he watched the play three times. Nell’s legendary vivacity was such that contemporaries spoke of it in superlatives. Bishop Burnet in his History described her as the ‘indiscreetest and wildest creature that ever was in court’. Another contemporary, Madame d’Aulnoy, wrote of Nell that ‘the King loved [her] more for her wit than the attractions of her person… it was difficult to remain long in her company without sharing her gaiety’.
Steve Trafford’s dialogue is crisply written, but his choice of a sequence of mournful Purcell songs, however exquisitely sung by Elizabeth Mansfield, is not likely to convey much of Nell’s mirth and gaiety, let alone the promised bawdiness. Their performance draws what action there is to a standstill. BSECS members are surely familiar with the device in Mamma Mia! whereby the audience listens out for the conversational cue announcing another popular Abba number. It’s the same here: Nell at one point recalls her seduction by Charles. His kisses, she reflects, were ‘sweeter than roses’. Cue Purcell’s ‘Sweeter than Roses’. A solemn moment at the end of the play was undercut by awareness of the same device. You didn’t need to be a Purcell expert to predict which old favourite was coming down the line when Nell asked ‘How will I be judged, Margery? When I am laid in earth?’
There are many comic moments, however, such as when Nell tries on costumes from the old days when she starred in britches roles. But by far the most delightful comedy comes from Margery. Nell is twitting her about dancing. Margery raises her skirts and performs a solemn and oddly charming clog dance, which raised spontaneous applause from the audience.
But overall there wasn’t much chance for Nell in this play. It’s all too elegiac – her dominant mode is hand-wringing anxiety. We never really see her comic appeal nor her eroticism, or at least not with this casting. It feels churlish to draw attention to the fact, but in 1685 Nell Gwyn was in her mid-thirties; Elizabeth Mansfield is not.
The Restoration of Nell Gwyn is at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London until the 20th of February 2016. Performances begin at 7.45pm with matinees on Thursday and Saturday at 3.15pm. For further details see the theatre’s website.