THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By Peter Quilter
Tour, currently at Richmond Theatre, tour continues to Windsor, Glasgow and Bath until 4 July, then Harold Pinter Theatre London from July 8 until August 8, 2026
Dame Maureen Lipman is rightly considered now a National Treasure, although such a lively and vivacious character might balk at such a designation. This new play written for her by Peter Quilter almost defines the ‘star vehicle’; it’s more a vaudeville piece – she plays a wacky old lady, and John Middleton plays Ronen her long suffering, responsible brother, reduced to the ‘straight man’ feeding her one-liners.
It’s written by Peter Quilter who created the glorious Glorious for Lipman about Florence Foster Jenkins and was also behind the acclaimed Judy Garland biog drama End of the Rainbow, so he’s got pedigree and he obviously loves a diva story. Sadly though, this forlorn comedy never really takes flight. It’s like a routine episode of The Vicar of Dibley, ‘gentle comedy’ which is heartwarming and unchallenging and while it may charm some audiences Dame Maureen’s talents deserve more, considering her deft ability to flit from comedy to drama.
She plays the spritely, elderly Allegra who lives alone in a big house, neglects to eat, but spends the time when she isn’t warbling at home annoying the local shop and cafe owners by bursting into song and doing a number. Ronen employs a Czech carer Anna (Elizabeth Bower) to look after her. Cue jokes about potato dumplings.
The play is confined to Allegra’s kitchen, so we never see her public performances. An example of ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. What we get instead from acclaimed choreographer Stephen Mear (who also directs) are little vignettes, like dream sequences or vaudeville turns, where she does ‘Singin in the Rain’ or ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’, the latter a good example as it’s out of copyright. Bizarrely Quilter is allowing productions to change the songs as they wish, so it’s cabaret not a musical. Mind you, Lipman pulls off a great Elvis turn in ‘That’s All Right Mama’.
There’s diminishing returns with these numbers because although Lipman gives them her all the context is amateurish. Allegra’s shtick is that she is joyful but her irresistible urge to sing and her bonhomie wears you down.
It might have worked ratcheted up to a more fantastical level but instead it opts for a dull naturalism, while still not being anchored in any familiar reality. I attended with a long-term Age Concern employee who confirmed to me she’d never met an Allegra in all her years. Bailey Patrick does wonders with the part of Officer Rogers, the policeman who seems to have time to constantly visit and chastise her. She’s warned not to phone the judge who tried her case (in what planet would this happen?). It ends with her being sedated and her brother learns the error of his ways, saying “The world out there is shutting you down”, as if she was Nelson Mandela.
There’s an attempt at an audience singalong to (of all things) ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’, an American baseball song which, I’d guess, never had much purchase on the cultural psyche of middle-aged ladies in cosy rural England. At one stage, the lights go up on the audience, and we’re supposed to play the part of the escapees from a care home who have risen to support her campaign.
If you love the lady this is a joyful if forgettable wallow, but in the end it’s a self-indulgence. In short, odd.
