Jessica Swale’s 2015 play Nell Gwynn is currently receiving its first major UK revival since 2017, in a touring co-production with Shakespeare North Playhouse, Theatre by the Lake, and Storyhouse. I attended the 18th June matinee performance during its run at Shakespeare North Playhouse, and I can confirm it is superb.
With a script newly adapted by Swale, this version is directed by Bryony Shanahan, who has masterminded a joyous masterpiece.
Swale’s play is a playfully anachronistic comedy which couples modern dialogue with seventeenth-century references. This production is staged in-the-round, cultivating a warm intimacy between the actors and audience, and the play’s historical elements are emphasised through its aesthetics – both the timbered set and the richly detailed costumes vividly evoke the mid-1600s. The use of music is also prominent, as Swale’s comedy is a play with songs, newly arranged for this production; Candida Caldicot’s full-bodied contemporary folk-style score is performed with verve by the cast of actor-musicians.
Of course, Nell is the play’s dramatic centre, and Rose Shalloo’s interpretation is truly mesmerising. As her down-to-earth, kind-hearted Nell charms all the other characters (barring adversaries), Shalloo herself captivates us, her twenty-first century playgoers. Puckishly playful and deeply sincere as the moments demand, she memorably brings Gwyn’s storied wit and warmth to life.
Opposite her, Guy Woolf’s Charles II is compellingly nuanced, a far cry from the stereotype of this Stuart king as little more than an appealing debauchee. Woolf’s ‘merry monarch’ is pensive and world-weary, haunted by the death of his father and aware of the precariousness of his own position. Yet he is also roguish, sincere, and tender. Most noticeably, Woolf’s portrayal reflects Charles’s deep affection for the various women in his life. A particularly touching example of this occurs in Act 2, following the scene wherein Charles and Nell (who by then is expecting his child) mutually declare their love for each other. As that scene ends, he embraces Nell; pulling her close, he gently pats her stomach, then caresses her cheek, indicating his solicitude for her and their unborn child.
Elliot Harper offers a riveting performance as Nell’s previous paramour, the famed Restoration-era actor Charles Hart, noted for his leading roles. Hart begins the play self-assured and rather vain, yet his confidence is shaken and his wounded jealousy emerges as Nell falls for the King. In the penultimate scene, Nell returns to the theatre following Charles’s death, and she and Hart reconcile in a dialogue. Shalloo and Harper richly imbue this scene with the sense of two longtime creative collaborators whose affection and respect for one another runs deep.
Stanton Wright portrays the great Restoration actor Edward Kynaston, one of the last men to play women on the English stage, as dramatic, self-absorbed, and with a penchant for overthinking his various roles. Yet he grounds Kynaston’s intensity in his genuine, all-consuming love for the craft to which he has dedicated his life.
Jamie Ross’s portrayal of John Dryden fully embodies the nervous, self-torturing, artistic frustration which haunts writers, as well as their elation when they finally succeed. It is beautiful to watch him slowly gain confidence and come into his own with Nell’s encouragement, as he begins to write scripts to showcase her comic talent.
Burhan Kathawala’s Ned Spigget is an endearingly enthusiastic member of the King’s Company of players.
Other actors in the cast shift effortlessly between multiple roles. Adam Clifford is both a frazzled Thomas Killigrew, the manager of the King’s company desperately trying to hold everything together and lead his company successfully, and Lord Arlington, one of Charles II’s real-life advisors; in Swale’s play, he appears as a scheming adversary in Nell’s story.
Celia Cruwys-Finnigan plays three historical individuals: two of Charles II’s other mistresses, Lady Castlemaine and Louise de Keroualle, as well as Nell’s older sister, Rose Gwynn. She deftly portrays Castlemaine’s haughtiness, calculation, and fiery fury, Louise’s conniving nature, and Rose’s kindliness and encouragement.
Sufia Manya completes the cast, playing Nell and Rose’s mother Old Ma Gwynn, a tough, no-nonsense brothel madam. She also portrayed Charles II’s Portuguese wife Queen Catherine (furious and movingly heartbroken at her husband’s appointment of Lady Castlemaine as one of her ladies-in-waiting), and Nancy, the dresser for the King’s Company and Nell’s beloved confidante.
The production’s powerful final image is its crux. Nell has returned to the theatre after Charles’s death, and she and her castmates have just performed the end of Dryden’s tragedy Tyrannick Love; all the characters have dramatically slain themselves and the stage is strewn with bodies. Nell has just spoken the play’s epilogue. Seconds after she ends it, one of the other actors emerges from the shadows, handing her an orange. She holds it aloft, turning to share her triumphant smile with all of us, before she lays down onstage with the other actors and the lights fully fade. This moment seems to symbolise Nell taking her place in history as an actress who has made her way in the world on her own merits.
To conclude: this incredible revival of Swale’s comedy is pure delight. Above all, it is a love letter to theatre and its enduring ability to unite actors and audiences in the beauty of storytelling. Ephemeral though this art form may be, it brings us all together – as Nell herself tells Charles: ‘[J]ust for that moment, we’re all there, us and the crowd and it’s all that exists. And it fills us. [. . .] And then it’s gone. And it can never be again’. Yet we cherish the memories. Swale’s Nell Gwynn is a heart-warming tribute to Gwyn’s legacy of laughter.