MBK SUPAS Review

"I had high hopes going into SUTCo’s Margaret Beaufort: Kingmaker. Margaret Beaufort, as a historical figure, is someone I have always been interested in, so I was excited by the prospect of a play being written about her criminally under-represented life as the mother of Henry VII, and as the play argues, the deciding figure in allowing the Lancastrian dynasty to claim the English throne. The plot follows Margaret’s attempts to navigate the death of Henry IV, the ascension of a tyrannical Richard III and the subsequently rebellions she is depicted as orchestrating. This is all underpinned with a story about separation, namely a mother feels from her child as Margaret was apart from him for 12 years. Margaret is finally reunited in the plays denouement, as her son (Henry VII) takes the throne of England.

A highlight of the show were the performances of Ella Hulford’s Queen Elizabeth and Iris Read’s Elizabeth Woodville. They maintained a believable mother-daughter dynamic that generated true emotion. Read, in particular, brought depth to her character during moments of confrontation, while Hulford’s maternal warmth provided a compelling counterbalance. Max Hanks as Henry Tudor was also a highlight. Their performance through Henry’s early twenties demonstrated a dynamic range of emotions and secure characterisation that matured across the play’s multi-year timespan. Roberto Rowinski’s Reginald Bray was in my opinion the most compelling performance. Taking on the right-hand-man of Margaret Beaufort, he gave a subtle and nuanced performance, demonstrating a keen awareness of when to command attention and when to step back. Tilly Harradine brought gravitas and conviction to the role of Margaret Beaufort. However, for a play called Margaret Beaufort, she felt quite absent. Much of the second act was dominated by the politics of the era, the scandals and betrayals of Richard’s men. Beaufort often appeared an afterthought in the second half. Despite this, Harradine gave a commanding performance nevertheless.

This was a play centred around love. Margaret’s love for Henry, Stanley’s love for Margaret, Richard’s love for power, Queen Elizabeth’s love for her children. Despite this, the execution felt rather lukewarm. Andrew Hurrell and Abbie Wright’s direction was incredibly straightforward. While this is no great crime, in a play with such nuanced characters, It would have been nice to see this reflected in the directing. There were certainly some inspired moments that changed up the pace and captured a certain imagination. However, these were often met with varying degrees of greatness. Richard III’s death provided a surprising and inventive end to the clearly now haywire King. I was comforted, as many history fans would be, that there was no Shakespearean style duel between Richard III and Henry VII. Despite the players all displaying a good grasp of stage-acting, some fundamental errors had not been polished out. Something that ultimately has to fall upon the directing team to tweak. Actors paced the stage with little to no reason why. Consistently turned their backs to the audience, which lead to several issues with projection and clarity. At the end of the day, these are fundamental blunders that I hope can be ironed out, In what I hope are later productions of the show.

The production was also let down by the tech. The lighting design was a tad dull and often frustrating. It felt generally cohesive. Westminster Abby was lit a lovely purple glow from a wing, imitating (I presume) a stain glass window. But in other scenes lighting was limited to be a blanket white light across the whole stage or only half of it. Numerous blackouts gave the play a stop-start feel. More often than not, the lighting failed to highlight the actors or the performance. The sound production was limited too. A medieval-style version of The Pogues’ “The Fairytale of New York” was nice touch. However, an unfitting rendition of "Ready or Not” by the Fugees was distracting to what was the plays climax, the Battle of Bosworth. This left the sound design missing a real sense of style. A more diverse soundscape would not have gone amiss and would have greatly aided in the actors’ storytelling. Even so, the costuming warrants merit. Under the tight budgets of student theatre, a range pretty suitable and convincing costumes were displayed. I am particularly remined of a beautiful cyan dress worn by Ann Neville in the second act.

Andrew Hurrell’s script was tight and the dialogue lowed nicely. Albeit, I do feel a greater focus on the title character would have benefitted it. Hurrell’s script favoured a broader retelling of the Wars of the Roses, sidelining its titular character. For a play that was advertised to be centred around a woman, and with several important female characters, this was far from a female-centred story. Subsequently, the play did little to actually address the issues that came with Margaret being a woman. Margaret’s position as the mother to the only Lancastrian heir under a Yorkist rule was a complicated one, further complicated simply by being a woman. Little was done to address this however, undermining her intelligence and power. Whether Hurrell wanted to delve into Beaufort’s character under the lens of feminist history and indeed methodologies of feminist history, I cannot know. Anyhow, taking the script was at face value, it was well-crafted and certainly something for Hurrell to be proud of.

Overall, Margaret Beaufort: Kingmaker did end up falling short of its potential. It’s look at the Wars of the Rose was a broad brushstroke of the period rather than a precise examination of its titular character. This was further damaged by a lack of strong and consistent tech or direction. Amongst its positives, the largest must be the genuine talent of the cast that helped elevate this play."