CANADA in the 1950s. We are in the apartment of petty civil servant
Henry Benedict Stuart, where his wife Lilian puts on airs, boasts of her
family connections and lovingly dusts the reproduction Annigoni portrait
of our dear young Queen. Elderly eccentric great aunt Clementina
announces her latest success in patent medicine testimonials -- she has
become the Flush of Youth Lady in an advert for laxatives.
Home comes handsome Mr Stuart, a mild, pleasant and unassuming
middle-aged man, just in time to meet two visiting scientists from a
research foundation studying heredity, one of whom is the extravagantly
dressed and thickly accented Dr Maria Clementina Sobieska.
Get that name? No wonder Doc Sobieska drops on her knees and hails
Henry as ''Majesty''. Plain Mr Stuart is none other than the last male
descendant of the Young Pretender.
The plot thickens. Nestling in Dr Sobieska's bosom is Bonnie Prince
Charlie's snuff box, now containing an anaesthetic powder which will
regress Mr Stuart to his ancestor's melancholy years in exile. He sniffs
and lo, quiet Henry is transformed into the autocratic princeling, with
devastating consequences for the household.
Well, there are some funny lines. Victoria Hardcastle brings silly Mrs
Stuart brilliantly to life. Stephen Finlay nicely contrasts pale Henry
and outrageous Prince Charles. Ann Scott-Jones goes gorgeously over the
top as Dr Sobieska.
The play, by the Canadian writer Robertson Davies, has never before
been staged in Britain, which is not our loss. It may serve to while
away an idle hour or two on holiday in Perthshire, which must be the
sole justification for its inclusion in the Pitlochry season.
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