Alison Fairgrieve

I was disappointed, not by the settings which were totally right or the costumes - though why design the clothes of almost everybody in grey, black and white except for the red coats of Godolphin and some soldiers.Red for Tories perhaps? Anne's life was largely a tragedy and I could not see the entertainment in presenting her as stupid, undignified, over demanding and sexually specialised, when probably none of this had any basis in fact. Nor did she keep rabbits. The director thought that portraying all the men as dimwits in periwigs somehow reflects present day politicians in an amusing way. It was a coarser age, granted, and coarse language was justified.There was no explanation for the uninformed in the audience about the politics of the period and the basis of Anne's views. The story of Anne, Sarah and Abigail is quite interesting enough without making it farcical and without much meaning. The end was signalled by Anne's face distorted by the stroke which killed her at the age of 49. Abigail retired to a nice country house having married reasonably well and restored her social rank. Sarah, I suppose left to live in Blenheim Palace ( must look that up). Again, audiences who had not looked things up were left rather baffled. As a historical drama it was a mess and really not all that funny.