Backstairs Billy review: This whimsical royal comedy makes The Crown look too careful

Real corgis, acid putdowns and a regal performance from Penelope Wilton make Marcelo Dos Santos’s play about the Queen Mother and her loyal servant William Tallon an early festive delight

Penelope Wilton as the Queen Mother in ‘Backstairs Billy' (Johan Persson)

Even by the standards of the theatrical silly season that accompanies the advent of Christmas, Backstairs Billy is a thoroughly frivolous thing. Penelope Wilton delights in the central role of the Queen Mother, imperiously bossing about her butler Billy in a comedy that’s as whimsical as the beaded, veiled hats atop her head. Still, there’s a ticking brain underneath this particular confection, with writer Marcelo Dos Santos using the real-life story of royal servant William Tallon to explore the hidden 1970s gay history below stairs at Clarence House.

It’s Dos Santos’s first West End play, but it doesn’t feel like it. Producer and director Michael Grandage has alighted upon a polished, one-liner-filled script and given it a lavish, pacy production that’s full of moments of delight, from set designer Christopher Oram’s extravagantly pink decor to the real live corgis that scuttle across the stage. The royal family never looked so camp, and that’s before Billy (Luke Evans) delivers his briefing to his newest junior footman: “There are two queens in this castle, and I suggest you pay attention to both equally,” he says, proudly introducing green young Gwydion (Iwan Davies) to the bed-hopping ways of backstairs life.

Wilton is both convincing and hilarious as the more official of the two queens: brisk, easily bored, and always ready with an acid putdown (”Just as well Billy cleaned the carpets this morning,” she quips, as two home counties visitors grovel embarrassingly before her). While distant, stiff-upper-lip Lizzie rules out of duty, her mother is a relic of the more louche Edwardian era, dispensing champagne in defiance of a palace that’s keen to tighten the purse strings, and coaxing commoners into performing for her entertainment.

Luke Evans as William ‘Billy’ Tallon in ‘Backstairs Billy’ (Johan Persson)

It’s only in the more ambitious second act that Dos Santos tries to seriously critique the monarchy, instead of lightly tickling its imperiously raised chin. Black artist and sex worker Ian (Eloka Ivo) acts as a contrived detonator chucked into this bigoted environment, oddly unconcerned for his own safety. He confronts the Queen Mother about police brutality in the 1979 Southall Riots – unsurprisingly, she’s both unaware of and unbothered by the death of protestor Blair Peach – and scandalises everyone with a creatively decorated black dildo.

Dos Santos is on surer territory when he probes the monarchy’s deep weirdness in subtler, stranger ways. There’s a strand of sadomasochistic roleplay in Billy and Elizabeth’s relationship, their bodies gripped together in a giddy waltz of mutual need (hers for comfort and entertainment, his for glitter and power) that finds its culmination in a stomach-churning scene of humiliation.

This Clarence House is a gay paradise, but it’s also a hellscape, and Backstairs Billy is at its strongest when it brings its twisted dynamics to life. Still, even in its fluffiest moments, it’s altogether enjoyable: a cheeky riposte to The Crown’s carefully reverential approach to the royal family, made to brighten festive nights.

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