Backstairs Billy - Duke of York's

Interesting to see this in the same week as "Feeling Afraid as if Something Terrible is Going to Happen" at the Bush, the one-man play with Samuel Barnett, which was also written by Marcelo Dos Santos. That was a twisty, sophisticated, playful profile of a gay man of a certain age coming to terms with relationships, employment and his own foibles.

This was not.

She did exactly the same thing at tonight's performance. I suspect it is as directed.

To be fair, the corgis were the highlight

I saw this last night with a friend. I’m with those who are slightly baffled by it.

I found the first half very poor, to the extent I was considering leaving at the interval. Just not my kind of humour and all seemed to meander around pointlessly. I did think it improved in the second half, as it brought some more emotion and depth. The final scene was fine for me and made sense with the more serious points made earlier at times, underlying that he is at the end of the day ‘just’ a servant and the uncomfortable nature of that relationship.

Penelope Wilton acted beautifully, but wished id seen her in something else!

Scraping 2 stars for me - but it was fairly well acted and the majority of the audience loved it so horses for courses!

I was at yesterday's matinee and quite enjoyed it. It's non essential, but as an old fashioned crowd pleaser (albeit with some subversive undertones) with a nice set and some funny performances, it does the trick. A lovely performance from Penelope Wilton and I thought Luke Evans was very good too. Michael Simkins, Nicole Sloane and Eloka Ivo were standouts for me.

It was an old school audience too. No standing ovation, although people did seem to like it a lot.

A few thoughts from tonight’s viewing. Firstly, the £10 front row ticket I got was an absolute bargain to see this wonderful this cast and the two corgis up close. I certainly got full value from my seat even if I missed seeing people’s feet. Secondly, a shout out to the individual who picked the songs preshow. They had excellent taste in the songs selected. Walking into the auditorium with YMCA playing full blast followed by other 1970’s classics certainly put me in a good mood for the start of the show.

As for the play itself, it was a really funny piece from Marcelo Dos Santos that kept me and the rest of tonight’s audience laughing the entire evening. Both Dame Penelope and Luke Evans were brilliant in their roles and worked really well together on stage. Luke really has hot great comic timing and his impression of Charles is top drawer stuff. The rest of the cast I would say were just as good. I really didn’t feel there was a weak link in any of the performances. A quick mention on the corgis. An excellent bit of on stage acting tonight and they certainly didn't disgrace themselves alongside their human colleagues. It was a shame they didn’t make an appearance at the end. 

The only issue I had with this play was the ending. It was definitely a strange way to conclude it. Thinking about it on my tube ride back to my hotel I could only conclude was a power move by the Queen Mum to show Billy who was in charge. Despite the ending, it was a real fun evening and i had a big smile walking out of the theatre. 

Rating - 4⭐️

I thought that this show was alright, there were some funny one liners too. Whilst the last scene was bizarre and not in keeping with the rest of the play, I kinda get why they did it.

This is an interesting perspective. I really didn't like the show but that last scene made perfect sense to me. Up until that point I'd thought that QM was toying with Billy in a way he didn't realise, and the last scene was the ultimate proof of it. But I thought the play up until that point had been overly indulgent on the power relationship. So maybe it does depend on one's views on the earlier scenes, and - perhaps more broadly - one's views on the monarchy in general. I still ended up thinking the play wasn't great, but the last scene made sense to me.

To be honest, I can't point to anything specific as I saw it in November and I haven't thought much about it since then! It might have been connected to the prejudices I brought into the theatre about the monarchy in general, so I may have read things into it that weren't there (given there wasn't much there from my recollection)

Any idea on running time for this?

Enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting. I found the script very tight and the humour plentiful and tasteful too. I’m in the camp of finding the last scene rather cruel and disjointed from the rest of the piece but overall had a great evening. Nicole Scherzinger was also in the audience last Friday who seemed to enjoy too, although clearly this was a very British piece.

Oh my gosh, I suspect I was seated 2 rows behind her (she would have been in Row H or thereabouts)! I 'knew' she was 'somebody' as she didn't look like the typical audience member... very polished, beringed, and behatted (to her credit, she took this off when the show started).