If you’re trying to think of the most quintessentially English theatre evening possible, then look no further than last night’s performance of Peter Shaffer’s 1987 play Lettice and Lovage.
Acting legends Maureen Lipman, Anne Reid and Tom Conti took to the stage at the Ambassador’s Theatre in London’s West End for a one-night rehearsed reading in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Lettice Douffet (Maureen Lipman) is an expressive, colourful tour guide in sixteenth century Fustian House, one of England’s most boring stately homes, where very little has happened over the past 400 years. Not one to let the truth get in the way of a good story, Lettice has become a master at embellishing the meagre historical stories of the house on her tours. Her stories gradually become wilder and wilder. The visitors are equally entertained and appalled, and one (Conti) questions her versions of the facts. Things reach a head when her officious boss from the governing Preservation Trust, Charlotte Schoen (Miranda Hewitt), witnesses Lettice’s fabrications and calls her in to her office for a reprimand. The brilliant Anne Reid, now 88 years old, plays Miss Framer, Charlotte’s hapless assistant. Lettice argues her case, blaming the dullness of the house and saying her mother taught her to “Enlarge, Enliven, Enlighten!” This, however, is to no avail and she is sacked.
Fast forward ten weeks and Lettice is home alone at her Earls Court bedsit when Charlotte, guilty at what she did, pays Lettice a visit. She has a letter of reference for Lettice and the promise of a job on a tour boat on the Thames. Initially reluctant to chat with Charlotte, Lettice lets her in and the two women gradually bond over a few drinks of Lettice’s home-made Elizabethan-style wine. Although totally different, the two women connect over their love of the past – Lettice with her love of all things Elizabethan and Charlotte with her hatred of any building built after 1950. Charlotte admits she was once involved in a plot with her ex-boyfriend to blow up the Shell Building on the Thames. They called themselves the Eyesore Negation Detachment (E.N.D). The two women also share their admiration for Mary, Queen of Scots. There’s a solitude and neediness to both women that makes you wonder if they’ll get together romantically. In the mean time they end up very drunk.
The third act is set a few months later. This sees their now firm friendship tested when Lettice is accused of a strange crime that occurred during one of the women’s evenings spent together re-enacting famous trials and executions in Lettice’s flat. The two women meet with a lawyer (Conti) to sort things out, and end up in a very different place.
Lipman is excellent as the flamboyant theatrical Lettice. Although this was just a reading, her expressive body language, comic timing and hilarious facial expressions made you forget that. She’s performed this play before, previously as Charlotte where she apparently was also very good. The role of Lettice was originally written for Dame Maggie Smith but it could have been written for Lipman. Hewitt is also good as the obviously lonely Charlotte who lives her life through her work, but she’s not the same level of actress as Lipman, or indeed Anne Reid or Tom Conti and this shows. It would have been nice to see Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid on stage as the two main characters which is what I was expecting. Nevertheless, this was an entertaining exploration of the lives of two single, older women living alone in a big city. Shaffer’s play remains relevant. I wonder what he’d make of the state of London’s skyline in 2024.
Queerguru’s Contributing Editor Ris Fatah is a successful fashion/luxury business consultant (when he can be bothered) who divides and wastes his time between London and Ibiza. He is a lover of all things queer, feminist, and human rights in general. @ris.fatah
