THE QUEEN'S NANNY

 

The Queen’s Nanny by Melanie Tait.

Directed by Priscilla Jackman. Assistant director Miranda Middleton Set Designer – Michael Hankin Costume Designer – Genevieve Graham Lighting Designer – Morgan Moroney Composer & Sound Designer – James Peter Brown  Dialect & Voice Coach – Jennifer White  Movement Coach – Tim Dashwood Stage Manager – Sean Proude Assistant Stage Manager – Madelaine Osborn Costumer Supervisor – Lily Mateljan  Cast Matthew Backer as J and all other characters Briallen Clarke as Marion Sharon Millerchip as Elizabeth. Ensemble Theatre.The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. June 19-21 2025. Bookings 62752700

 

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Sharon Millerchip as the Queen Mother, Briallen Clarke 
as Marion Crawford. Matthew Backer as J in The Queen's Nanny

 

It would not be too far-fetched to regard the story of Marion Crawford as the tragedy of a common woman. Crawford, or Crawfie as she was affectionately known by royalty and the palace staff was the Royal Governess to Lilibet, the future Queen Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret from 1933 to 1949. In 1949 after seventeen years of loyal and dedicated service to the crown, Crawfie was given a pension and rooms with her husband George Buckley in Kensington Palace.

Briallen Clarke is Marion Crawford

Her offense was not against the Gods but against the Royal Family when, on an editor’s request she wrote articles for a woman’s magazine, revealing insights into the life of the royal family, ironically in the first instance with the agreement of the Queen Mother. An American publisher offered her $85,000 to write a book,The Little Princesses, which became a best seller and  roused the ire of the Queen Mother, who saw this as a complete betrayal of confidence and trust. Crawfie, who retired on the money with her husband to Aberdeen became a vilified outcast, never to have contact with the Royals again. An intelligent, educated woman and loyal servant to the crown and the princesses in her charge died alone in 1988.

Sharon Millerchip is the Queen Mother

 

Playwright, Melanie Tait has succinctly and empathetically told Crawfie’s story in a ninety minute drama that spans the euphoria of her status to the domestic and financial struggles, once out of service and the consequences of her actions to resolve the struggles by accepting the book offer. Using only three actors to tell her story, Tait has constructed a roller coaster of emotional responses. What begins as a warm-hearted glimpse into Crawfie’s early engagement and her relationship with the Queen Mother and her penchant for Dubonnet darkens with the onset of war and erupts with tragic overtones as Tait unravels the personal consequences of Crawfie’s innocent actions. Tait tells the story through the drama without judgement. It is left to the audience to judge the character of Sharon Millerchip’s steely and superior Queen Mother or Briallen Clarke’s progressive, devoted and finally ostracized Marion. Matthew Backer with chameleon agility sketches distinctly crafted characters such as J, the Aussie journalist ,Ainslie the Butler, the American Editor, George Buckley, Princess Elizabeth and the narrator of the drama. All three actors have been brilliantly cast and Priscilla Jackman’s direction keeps the audience glued to the performance from the light-hearted opening to the sorrowful conclusion to this woeful saga of Britain’s first royal commentator.

Matthew Backer as Lilibet. Briallen Clarke as Crawfie

In an era when tabloid revelations are de rigeur and newsstands are filled with preposterous articles about members of the Royal family, Crawfie’s insight into the habits and lives of the Royal Family at the time may appear innocuous. Because of the Queen Mother’s later insistence on signed non-disclosure statements by all appointed staff members, there can be no insider exposés, and we are left at the end of The Queen’s Nanny with the question, “Was Marion Crawford the victim of deception and injustice?”

Is naivety and the grasp of opportunity her fatal flaw? Whether a Monarchist or a Republican, Ensemble’s skilfully staged production will provoke response as much about Crawford’s story as about the role and the responsibility of the media in reporting on the lives of celebrities. It is still very much a story for our time. Don’t miss it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE QUEEN'S NANNY

Written by Melanie Tait

Directed by Priscilla Jackman

Presented by Ensemble Theatre

The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre to 21 June

 

Reviewed by Len Power 19 June 2025

 

A thriving industry has grown up to feed the public’s fascination with the lives and activities of the Royal Family. The play tells the story of Marion Crawford, a young Scottish woman, who became nanny to the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the 1930s.

She worked for the Royal Family until 1949, building an intimate and trusted relationship with the princesses and the Queen Mother. For her long and faithful service, she was given a grace and favour house in London.

Upon her departure from her job, she agreed to author The Little Princesses, a book which told the story of her time with the family. Although she had been given tentative approval by the Royal Family to publish her story, the family ostracised her after the book appeared under her own name. No member of the family ever spoke to her again.

Australian playwright, Melanie Tait, imagines the details of the relationship of Crawford with the Royal Family showing how they depended on her to raise the princesses well. The family’s later actions and lack of feeling for this woman who had devoted the best years of her life to them, gives the play a poignant edge. Much of the humour of the play is at the expense of the royal characters. It could be argued that Tait is a bit tough on them, but it is certainly entertaining and funny.

The play has been given an excellent production by the Ensemble Theatre. It has been directed with imagination and flair by Priscilla Jackman. Of the cast of three, Matthew Backer darts in an out of character playing 8 roles, including the young Princess Elizabeth, Bertie, the later King George VI, and Crawford’s husband, George Buthlay. Backer’s performance in all of these roles is outstanding.

Matthew Backer (various roles) and Briallen Clarke (Marion Crawford)

Briallen Clarke makes Marion Crawford instantly likeable with her direct and down-to-earth Scottishness. Her strong performance in this large role is at time humorous as well as touching and finally memorable.

Sharon Millerchip (Queen Mother)

Sharon Millerchip’s great sense of timing gives her character of the Queen Mother both a formidable, steely presence as well as some of the best funny moments of the play.

While Tait’s play succeeds in the telling of this woman’s story, the play ends with a discussion about Australia’s place in the Commonwealth. While it’s a point continually argued about, it feels awkwardly placed in this play.

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

  

The Queen’s Nanny, by Melanie Tait. Directed by Priscilla Jackman. Ensemble Theatre. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. June 19-21. Reviewed by Alanna Maclean.

Matthew Backer with Briallen Clarke as Marion - 'Crawfie'.

I’m old enough to have encountered the Crawfie stories, I think in an odd little magazine called Sunny Stories, probably in the early 1950s.

We never heard tell of the upset that publication of tales of the early years of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret caused and soon moved on to the excitements of Journey into Space and Jet Morgan. 

However, it’s clear from Melanie Tait’s imaginative and sensitive  play about the woman who took care of the early upbringing of both the Queen and her sister that here’s a story that’s been waiting to be told. 

There are only three actors on a set by Michael Hankin that is full of  visual surprises. Little houses (didn’t the princesses have a house that was sized only for children?), a miniature palace, a tiny train high in the air. Among these a tribe of characters move, most of whom are performed by a very busy Matthew Backer. He switches from occasional narrator or passing character to stuttering Bertie (who will become George VI) to a snobby (and camp) servant to Elizabeth (who will become the Queen Mother) to Crawfie’s eventual  husband the feckless George and to an utterly charming and steady Elizabeth (who will become Elizabeth II), whatever her age.

Sharon Millerchip as the Queen Mother

That leaves Sharon Millerchip as the Queen Mother and Briallen Clarke as Marion Crawford, both powerful characters in their own way. But the royal juggernaut represented by Millerchip’s hard drinking, charming but forceful queen is going to outweigh the sterling metal of the Queen’s Scottish nanny, given an incisive and perceptive performance by Clarke. 

It’s a duel and power is on the side of the royals. And hindsight, given the scandals and royal tragedies of the ensuing decades, is bound to colour the audience’s perception of events. 

It’s all beautifully done and well worth a visit to the Playhouse for what is a very brief season. 

A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART TWO. Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Lainie Hart as Nora, Rhys Robinson as Torvald
in Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2

 

Dolls House 2 by Lucas Hnath. 

Directed by Joel Horwood. Set design Tom Berger. Lighting design Lachlan Houen. Sound design Neville Pye. Costume design Helen Drum. Properties Coordinator Rosemary Gibbons. Stage manager Carmen King. Production Manager Liz de Toth. Set Coordinator. Russell Brown OAM Canberra Repertory Theatre. June 13-28 2025. Bookings 62571950.

 

Elaine Noos as Anne-Marie. Lainie Hart as Nora

 

It is said that when Nora Helmer slammed the door on her exit in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House and decided to leave her husband Torvald and her children in search of her independence and true identity it was the loudest door slam in the history of the theatre. In our modern day and age such an act begs the question “What happened to Nora?” Playwright Lucas Hnath has written an intriguing and illuminating account of Nora’s imagined return after an absence of fifteen years. Now a highly successful writer, writing under a pseudonym, she has been exposed as Nora Helmer by a judge who threatens to reveal that she has been acting against the law because she is not legally divorced. It may seem a rather tenuous argument in the light of contemporary expectations, but it serves to reinforce the oppressed status of a married woman at the turn of the twentieth century. Nora (Lainie Hart), having assumed that Torvald (Rhys Robinson) had filed a divorce when she left is therefore forced to return to request a divorce from Torvald to escape the consequences of her legally illicit behaviour in the intervening years.

Elaine Noon (Anne-Marie), Anna Lorenz (Emmy), Rhys Robinson (Torvald)

To a modern audience, Hnath’s premise may require a willing suspension of disbelief, although it quickly becomes evident that Ibsen’s critical account of the woman’s subservience and powerlessness in his A Doll’s House is still the case at the time of Nora’s return in A Doll’s House, Part 2. Nora, although now an independent and highly successful woman writer is still bound by a patriarchy that denies her free will. Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2 ‘s polemic contends that the circumstances of Henrik Ibsen’s original play persist. In confronting the struggle, Hnath’s Nora provides a prophesy of change and a strong feminist voice for the future. There is no need for the door to slam at the end of the ninety-minute play. For today’s enlightened audience Nora’s dream for change has become a reality. The difference that remains between her and Torvald is that she can imagine that change. Torvald can’t. and there’s the rub.

Lainie Hart as Nora. Anna Lorenz as Emmy

Hnath has constructed his play as an argument. Scene one is Nora’s scene and we hear her argument. Scene Two introduces the perspective of the housemaid Anne-Marie (Elaine Noon). Scene Three introduces Torvald’s confusion and perplexity. We meet Nora’s daughter Emmy (Anna Lorenz) in Scene 4 and finally Nora and Torvald come to an understanding and conclusion to the debate. If it were not for the fact that director Joel Horwood has chosen an excellent cast, the play could become tediously didactic, but Horwood’s cast imbue their argument and opinion with articulately fleshed out character. Tom Berger’s carefully and cleverly designed set avoids any superfluity, while retaining a sense of period and middle class affluence which allows an audience to focus entirely on the contrasting arguments. The design is ideally complemented by Helen Drum’s costumes, Lachlan Houen's atmospheric lighting and Neville Pye’s blend of classical and contemporary sound design.

Horwood’s direction is purposeful, focusing clearly on his actors to play out their attitude. Hart’s Nora is effervescent. There is still the girlish playfulness of Ibsen’s songbird, but it is now imbued with the confidence of the successful and independent woman. Hart is an actress who never fails to captivate. Robinson’s Torvald captures the conservative conditioning of his gender, social standing and bewildered resistance to change perfectly. Elaine Noon’s housemaid Anne Marie is the paragon of loyal servitude. Noon’s traditional foil perfectly captures Anne Marie’s acceptance of her lot with a strength of conviction and duty. As Nora’s daughter Emmy, Anna Lorenz is her father’s daughter, engaged to a bank clerk and content to enter marriage. Lorenz combines Nora’s intelligent and independent strength of character with her father’s observance of social expectation. At times her speed of delivery lost the sense of dialogue but the characterization was entirely convincing.

All in all, Rep’s production of A Dolls House, Part 2 is a meticulously and insightfully staged performance of Hnath’s absorbing conjecture. Knowledge of Ibsen’s original drama may heighten appreciation of the relationship between the circumstances that drove Nora to leave Torvald and her journey of independence in the intervening fifteen years. However, it will not detract in any way from the enjoyment and engagement with this thought-provoking and stimulating night at the theatre.

Photos by Ross Gould

 

A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath. Directed by Joel Horwood. Canberra Repertory Canberra Rep Theatre. Until June 28. Reviewed by Alanna Maclean.

 

 This is the ultimate sequel. What happened after Nora went out that door at the end of Ibsen’s original A Doll’s House?

She went on living and after some initial struggles, quite successfully too, turning herself into a writer with a heart for women’s issues.

In this sequel she returns because she needs husband Torvald to complete a proper divorce. She’s moved on, he’s hung on. Then there’s her daughter Emmy who hasn’t figured gender issues out yet, very self assured but on the cusp of a marriage which might confine her as Nora’s did. 

And the housekeeper and maid of all work, Anne Marie, who was left to cope with Nora’s three children at the expense of her own family, has a lot of strong words to say about all of this.

Lainie Hart is a powerful and assured Nora, Elaine Noon is caring and perceptive as Anne Marie, Anna Lorenz makes daughter Emmy clear eyed and strong and Rhys Robinson as Torvald is still wonderfully struggling to understand why Nora left.

It’s a no interval fast running piece, full of fierce language and done on a set by Tom Berger that is spare and stark and elegant.  A long staircase, tall back lit windows, minimal furniture and of course the famous door is about all. And it is enough in this play which comes straight to various points in a series of terse scenes, encouraging all kinds of thoughts about the issues. Which are far from outdated.

A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2

 

Written by Lucas Hnath

Directed by Joel Horwood

A Canberra REP production

Canberra REP Theatre, Acton to 28 June

 

Reviewed by Len Power 13 June 2025

 

When Nora famously slammed that door at the end of Henrik Ibsen’s acclaimed play, ‘A Doll’s House’, we were left wondering about Nora’s fate in such an inhibiting and disapproving society of the time.

The action in Lucas Hnath’s 2017 play, set 15 years later, gives us an opportunity to revisit Nora as she suddenly returns to the house of her husband, Torvald. Assuming she has been long divorced, she was shocked to find that her husband never filed the divorce papers officially, leaving her open to legal action for signing contracts, something a married woman was not allowed to do in that era. She has only returned to persuade her husband to file those papers.

This one act play in four parts focusses on each of the four characters in the play – Nora, her husband Torvald, the maid, Anne Marie, and Nora’s now grown-up daughter, Emmy.

The role of Nora, one that most actresses would aspire to play, is given a fine, multi-layered performance by Lainie Hart. Presenting as a strong, confidant woman determined to live her own way, her delivery of the dialogue and body language give hints that life has been a struggle. We know that attitudes will not change in her lifetime and Hart shows glimpses of the pain involved in her brave struggle. It’s a thoughtful and believable performance throughout.

Rhys Robinson gives a finely detailed performance of Torvald as an inhibited, emotionally damaged man who clearly has never moved on from his marriage to Nora or changed any of his attitudes that contributed to Nora’s leaving.

Emmy is played by Anna Lorenz as a young woman who seems to have her mother’s emotional strength but surprises both us and Nora with her determination to be married and live by the rules of society that Nora long ago rejected. Lorenz gives a strong performance in the role.

Elaine Noon is very effective as the long-serving maid of the household who finds herself torn between the demands of her job and her own feelings.

The suitably austere set was designed by Tom Berger and has a fine lighting design by Lachlan Houen. Helen Drum has provided attractive period costumes.

Director, Joel Horwood, has produced a tight show where the character work is highly detailed. Keeping the language contemporary added to the accessibility of this production which works on all levels.

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

 

Present Laughter by Noel Coward. Directed by Karen Vickery. ACT Hub. June 4-14. Reviewed by Alanna Maclean

Jarrad West as Garry. Photo Jane Duong

This is a long but rather magnificent 1940s play by Noel Coward about the theatre and the people in it, most notably the egotistical Garry Essendine (Jarrad West), pretty clearly based on Coward himself. 

There’s been a bit of editing and the gender of some of the roles have been swapped, and it’s a lengthy evening but there is much to enjoy.

Garry’s on his way to Australia (Africa in the original play) for a theatre tour but his life is being complicated by various would be lovers, and his separated but not divorced wife Liz (Crystal Mahon) seems still very much a controlling force in his life.  He’s not getting any younger either, and there’s a certain angst about that.

There is a degree of elegance in the setting and a lot to appreciate but I’m not sure that the gender changes always work for the play, despite a luminous performance by Callum Doherty as David, the very young thing who falls under Garry’s spell early in the piece. 

From left, Joanna (Karina Hudson) and  Crystal Mahon   as Liz. Photo Jane Duong,

Tracy Noble is brisk and efficient as Monica, Garry’s secretary, keeping the paperwork and the people under control.  Crystal Mahon is calm as Liz, still in Gary’s life, organising and advising  but never quite getting round to a divorce. Joe Dinn as Morris  and Amy Kowalczuk as Henrietta bring to bustling life two more of the entourage without which Gary cannot operate. The urbane Fred (Leonidas Katsanis) takes a calm control over day to day domestic worries and the sinister Swedish Miss Erikson (Jenna Roberts) takes what looks like a slapdash anecdote laced control of the cleaning.

Apart from the idealistic David the other visitors include the frankly predatory Joanna (Karina Hudson), and the harbinger of future styles of theatre, Roland Maule (Michael Cooper), who writes plays of a sort that don’t chime well with the style of Garry.

West does a great job as the exasperated self centred Garry, who has to referee and survive all of the resulting chaos.

The set (Karen Vickery and Michael Sparks) bristles with silver, multiple doors, alcohol, and opportunities to light up a cigarette.

It’s a show that proves that Noel Coward is always worth revisiting.

Alanna Maclean

 

The Bees and the Ledger, and An Satong Kawaran

Photo Media Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

The Bees and the Ledger | Kai Wasikowski

An Satong Kawaran | George Calvelo

Photo Access | 15 May – 14 June 2025

Bees in the Ledger is described as being a kind of slow family work. Whilst you may well know little about the artist’s grandmother, Natalia Broadhurst, who is the central figure in the story presented here, you very likely know a lot about other members of his family. I’ll just mention that both his parents are excellent photo media artists, and his actress sister has been known to use her camera on a film set between takes.

So where does the exhibition’s title come from? The exhibition catalogue tells us that bees remember and that a ledger works in much the same way, structuring things so we can return to names, to dates, to whatever else we've recorded in them. The artist suggests that a ledger is a hive of sorts, with each entry being akin to a cell in a beehive, storing things which might otherwise not stay within our memories. And of course it is absolutely true that photography creates contents for a ledger - a place where we store images which remind us of what we saw, of things that we were doing, or places we had visited.

In this exhibition, Kai Wasikowski share parts of his grandmothers somewhat abandoned European life, abandoned when she migrated - arriving in Australia on a cargo ship in the 1970s. There are two large walls of photographs - one of domestic scenes, the other a variety. On one wall the images are displayed in a grid, on the other as a sequence. Careful examination allows us to take in what is being shared.

Kai Wasikowski, from the series 'The Bees and the Ledger,' 2024

Kai Wasikowski, from the series 'The Bees and the Ledger,' 2024

Kai Wasikowski, from the series 'The Bees and the Ledger,' 2024

The second exhibition here is by George Calvelo, previously a photojournalist in the Philippines and currently a documentary photographer based in Canberra. His artist bio tells us his personal work now “reflects years of unprocessed thoughts stemming from witnessing systemic disinformation and simmering societal disorder in his native country.”

The title of this exhibition An Satong Kawaran translates to “In Our Absence.” As with the companion exhibition, this show is about a life left behind in another country and a new life emerging in Australia.

Before leaving his home country Calvelo exposed several rolls of film. His intention was to re-expose them after he arrived in Australia. However, using the slow deliberate process of analogue photography, he did something different from photojournalism. He photographed his memories, familiar places, his childhood home, and final moments in places where he'd said his personal goodbyes. Later, looking at overlapping images on his developed films he found it hard to cut the frames. Why? Because he felt that he was looking at a dream like state of transition, where his sense of home was evolving because of the new place that he was now living.

So what we see in this exhibition are images where photographs captured in his new home have been overlapped with photographs from his old home. The result is some most extraordinary creations. Two of the archival inkjet prints are very large - one is 100 by 340 cm, another 130 by 324 cm. The quality of these prints is superb. 

George Calvelo, from the series 'An Satong Kawaran,’ 2023/2024

In addition to the prints, the exhibition includes two other pieces. Overlaid negative strips on a light box enable us to think about his “dream-like state”.

Installation image © Eunie Kim

And there is a 06:17 length video which is a compilation of Calvelo’s visual diary and past assignments. This beautifully shows us something of where this artist has been, what he’s heard, what he saw, and how he moved through the moments displayed. There are dreamlike pieces, photojournalistic images of events during periods of martial law, glorious portrayals of the Philippines countryside, and much more.

This review is also available on the author's own blog here.