It’s difficult to shake a sense that revisiting Moira Buffini’s Handbagged in 2025 feels surprisingly more dated than it did even a decade ago, when this particular reviewer last caught it (at the Coventry Belgrade).

That isn’t really a slight, either. Buffini’s witty, meta four-hander chronicling the reportedly frosty relationship between the late Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher is still a great deal of fun, and blitzes through Thatcher’s eleven-year tenure in suitably accessible and entertaining form. It’s more a commentary on how vastly different the geopolitics are this time around.

Notably, we’ve had the realisation of Thatcher’s ultimate Euroscepticism in Brexit, and whilst much is made of the Queen herself being a constant throughout the perils and even changing of the guard at No. 10, when well all know she’s now off playing with the corgis or admiring the horses in the great beyond.

There are some notable parallels – a celebrity turned unreliable President, anyone? But on the whole, landing in the breakneck era that it does, and particularly at a time when UK, European and US politics are beset with brinkmanship and peril, it can’t help but feel a little staid. It’s a time capsule, for sure, and covers major periods such as the Falklands, the miners strike and IRA terrorism with aplomb, but when you’ve broken that fourth wall and have your leads acting as contemporised narrators (right down to addressing younger audience members who may not even have been born back in ’86) it feels somewhat jarring to have no reference at all to such major political earthquakes as Brexit and the obvious Reagan-Trump parallels, to name but a couple.

Similarly, the show passes a touching moment at the end regarding dementia, which Thatcher was herself in the later stages of when Buffini first wrote the piece, and yet there’s no acknowledgement of the Queen’s own mortality.

It’s a rare instance of what feels like a once excellent play now feeling a trifle incomplete; boxed in by its own creative choices. A revised, updated version of Handbagged, anyone?

“It’s a rare instance of what feels like a once excellent play now feeling a trifle incomplete; boxed in by its own creative choices.”

Despite this rather notable lacuna, what remains is still a feisty, frequently funny jolt through (relatively) recent history. Whilst it doesn’t probe too deep, with much of the banter and personality clash between the pair mostly focused around implicit or surface-level cattiness, it makes for an amusing watch. Buffini gave herself carte blanche to dial up some of the rhetoric and barbs by frequently having the elder iterations of Maggie and the Queen jumping in to clarify they never actually said that.

It’s heightened, occasionally even silly fun. There’s a great moment where the younger ‘Liz’ (a resplendent Helen Reuben) breaks from the poise of a particularly pointed Christmas message to lounge about and relish in the shock of ‘Mags’ (an equally impressive Emma Ernest) and Dennis Thatcher’s (Gerard McDermott’s) reactions to it. As the show repeatedly points out, it’s the kind of the Queen would never actually have done, but it’s delicious all the same.

McDermott and Cassius Konneh offer up great character work as jobbing actors who are ‘hired’ to take on a variety of roles in the journey through Eighties turmoil. Konneh gets some of the biggest laughs of the night as a hilarious take on Nancy Reagan (right down to the questionable pronunciations), though it’s arguably his interjections pointing out some of the social injustices of the time that resonate loudest. McDermott showcases an impressive wheelhouse of accents and impressions, doling out uncanny evocations of everyone from Prince Philip and Michael Heseltine to Geoffrey Howe and Arthur Scargill.

But there’s no denying it is a show anchored around its leading ladies, and all four not only get the voices down pat, but enrich these two iconic women with some extra dimension and nuance, too. Emma Ernest and Morag Cross inherit plenty of Thatcher’s most enduring lines and soundbites, but they’re deftly woven to give a sense of steely conviction where caricature could have easily prevailed. Sarah Boyle and Helen Reuben, meanwhile, manage to get the late Queen’s prim and precise moments to perfection, but also infuse her with a zesty, cheeky sense of fun and humour that she was privately renowned for.

“…wonderful performances across the board.”

They’re wonderful performances across the board that really carry the night.

The new production looks suitably grand, to boot. Katie Lias’ set is a striking coliseum for this battle Royale, neatly blending the ornate grandeur of an enormous coin featuring, naturally, the monarch’s profile, with more makeshift flourishes to reflect the in-universe ‘production’ – racks of costume changes for the gentleman floating upstage, or strands of rope rigging. Ryan Day’s moody lighting lends the aura of a studio interview or even flairs of interrogation whenever the two sit down for their next battle of wits.

Alex Thorpe generally keeps things pacy with a keen eye on character, and there’s plenty of movement, but some of the choices here are a touch… curious. Not least of all bizarre musical interludes where these esteemed and proper ladies burst into truncated renditions of jarring numbers such as The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ and Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’. It gives complete tonal whiplash from the rest of the RP hijinks and guffawing, and feels ripped from a far less classy production.

Overall, despite its now glaring age and some odd directorial choices, Handbagged still remains a treat. Not quite as cutting or essential as, say, a decade ago, but still a royally engaging evening of theatre, whose sassy, delightful central performances prove to be the real jewels in the crown.

Oh god, we haven’t even mentioned The Crown…