North London’s Park Theatre is doing cracking business with a play about Margaret Thatcher’s downfall a quarter of a century ago.

It examines the role not only of Sir Geoffrey Howe — the one-time ‘dead sheep’ who savaged Mrs T with his Commons resignation speech — but also his Left-leaning wife, Elspeth.

Lady Howe has long been a bogeywoman for Thatcherites; some reckon she wrote plodder Geoffrey’s speech. Playwright Jonathan Maitland, a political journalist, accepts that she stiffened her husband’s resolve but he has high regard for her.

She and Geoffrey (played by James Wilby) are the play’s heroes, standing up to the hectoring of Steve Nallon’s big-shouldered, caricatured Mrs T.

Six actors are used, the Park’s upstairs seats lending the stage the air of the Commons Chamber with its galleries. Some audience members sit on stage in seats that become Commons benches.

This may evoke memories of a recent Royal National Theatre show about the Wilson/Heath years, The House. We have also had plays about the Queen and her PMs — politics is suddenly big box office.

The play opens with Mr Wilby’s Howe alone on stage. Enter Mr Nallon, who did Maggie’s voice for Spitting Image and is done up here like her puppet in that show.

The opening words are ‘no, no, no’ in a Thatcherish baritone. Warm laughter from the audience.

Mr Wilby wears Sir Geoffrey’s glasses, but there is no attempt to catch his ponderous timbre. Likewise, elegant actress Jill Baker is little like the real Elspeth. Where is the ageing-pixie haircut and butch briskness? Mother Thatcher was a gift for cartoonists but so was liberal snoot Lady Howe. Ian Talbot’s production could have had more fun with this grand old trout.

The tale flicks between Howe’s Cabinet departure and the early years of the Thatcher Government when he was a radical Chancellor. A brief scene shows the early Howe saving an uncertain Thatcher in a meeting.

Source: Daily Mail