BWW REVIEWS: THE AUDIENCE, Apollo Theatre, May 6 2015

I need to start this review with a warning - I'm not sure that you'll see the same show as me if you see THE AUDIENCE next week. One of the main alterations to Peter Morgan's script for this revival (is it a revival if it's only been two years?!) is that the David Cameron section has moved to immediately before the 2015 General Election. And as last time lines were added during the run about Margaret Thatcher's death, I anticipate substantial rewrites to reflect the new reality post-vote. Also new since the Mirren incarnation of the show is the addition of a certain Mr Blair - at the expense of James Callaghan - and a coronation sequence at the end of the first half.

I've struggled with what to write in this review. It's important not to judge a show on what's been done before, but I found that quite hard to do in this case. I was charmed and a little swept away by the original, and found this version harder to love.

Kristen Scott Thomas gives an entertaining performance - and gets plenty of laughs - but for me she didn't feel like Elizabeth II. That is to say she played A queen who was meeting with her prime ministers, but she wasn't THE Queen. Her monarch is witty, acerbic, observant and a little bit sly; but just not close enough to what we know of the real thing for you to be able to buy in to some of the more unlikely jokes. Scott Thomas was at her most convincing in the scenes with her younger self (played by Izzy Meikle-Small at the performance I saw), where she addresses the difficulties of living a life in the spotlight, when you would like to be treated like everyone else.

Amongst the rest of the cast, Nicholas Woodeson's Harold Wilson is a bluff, gruff, fish out of water, whose scenes with the Queen start in amusement and end in pathos as the PM realises his memory. Sylvestra Le Touzel has done a good job of capturing Margaret Thatcher's distinctive voice - even if she does have to grapple with a dodgy wig which looks more Princess Di in a breeze than the Iron Lady! Her scene and that with John Major on the subject of the future of the monarchy were the encounters which worked best for me.

This is still a good show - if I was giving stars it would be somewhere around the 3.5 out of 5 mark - it's enjoyable and topical and should do good business, but I did not feel like it had the magic and sparkle of the previous version. In my personal little black book of what I've seen, I wrote of the original that I wasn't sure how the show would work with different actors in the leading roles - and I guess I have my answer - still a good evening in the theatre, but one that doesn't feel quite as plausible and close to reality.

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