Royal scandal, politics and pathos at Thame theatre

HERVEY at the Court of King George 11, will be performed at the Players Theatre in Thame, on Friday, February 2, at 7.45pm.

Described as ‘An amazing show full of humour and pathos’, it becomes very clear watching that there are real similarities to politics today. Nothing changes.

“Hervey” mines a largely forgotten area of royal scandal and one peopled by some colourful personages: King George II, a blustering German; Queen Caroline, his manipulative consul; Sir Robert Walpole, his even more manipulative Prime Minister; his son, the fatuous, reckless Prince of Wales; and Lord Hervey himself, a gilt-edged flunkey, desperate for attention and never receiving enough of it. The play is humorous throughout, and unstuffily intimate – but poignant in its conclusion – even the worst Royals have a human side.

The Hanoverian Royals were notorious for their inability to get on with one another, but in 1737 their squabbling reached grotesque new heights: the Prince of Wales, determined that his wife should not give birth beneath his parents’ roof, smuggled the poor woman – shrieking, fainting, her waters already broken – out of Hampden Court and back to a deserted St James Palace, where she was finally allowed to finish the job between two tablecloths borrowed from the house next door. The sequel to this unpleasantness saw the Prince banished from Court, his father racked by a mid-life crisis and his mother – the vivacious Queen Caroline – die of mortification.

“Hervey” is based on the memoirs of the King and Queen’s Vice Chamberlain, Lord Hervey of Ickworth, a waspish and witty aristocrat, desperate to make his mark as a statesman but ending up as nothing better than their Majesties’ drudge. The play, humorous and pacey, reveals all the nastiness at work among the Royals, as well as the bitter-sweet longings of the man who served them.

Tickets £10 from Spear Travels on 01844 217228 or online from www.thameplayers.co.uk