Wednesday 15th November 2023

Last week Harry Rollo presided at J.Sheekey’s. Like Diaghilev before him, he had his table and was ordering.

As it often does, the subject of our Prime Minister arose. I said that perhaps in person we would not like him so much, despite his adorable frockage and being awfully clever. After all, he said that ballet dancers should re-train as mechanics when all work drained away during the response to the pandemic. ‘He is the enemy,’ Harry Rollo boomed. ‘Performers cannot be borne. Far too dangerous..’

We went on to Billy Backstairs, a new play about Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (deep, deep curtsey) and her appropriately named Page of the Backstairs, William Tallon, whom, as it happens, I, Adrian Edge, once met. In real life he was slightly sinister and disappointingly failed to gossip lavishly about life at Clarence House with Her Late Majesty. One could imagine him as the owner of a small factory of mysterious purpose rather than a servant. He had on a blazer – a clubhouse look.

Reggie Cresswell was said to be in the audience with one of the leading theatre critics.

The play was complete heaven. It was so marvellous to be back at Clarence House after all these years. Six floral displays in the drawing room and pink carnations the only subject for the paintings on the walls.

The afternoon receptions! Where the guests were of such random selection, boxes of items from the ‘archive’ where provided to create talking points. Otherwise presumably there would have been no conversation at all. But armed with one of George VI’s old fishing reels or a pre-war dance card, the possibilities were limitless.

Some of the events depicted would not actually have happened. For instance a person penetrated one of the receptions who was not in fact the Prince of Lesotho but Ian from the night before i.e. dragged back by Backstairs Billy. Her Late Majesty was bewildered when this person said, ‘I’m from Tooting’ but battled on with ‘How clever’. Finally there was a very distressing incident when Hazel had an accident on the carpet. There were real corgis, you see.

None of this need stand in your way, though. The wondrous Majesty and Royal life, everything as it should be, the trays brought in, and taken out again, the rugs folded, the tiara on, then off again, the silk afternoon dresses, the disagreeable visits from the bank manager risen completely above, all brought back from the dead as if nothing had happened.

Afterwards we resumed at J. Sheekey’s with the leading theatric critic and Reggie Cresswell. The leading critic, who is left-leaning and not even a monarchist (!), had liked the play. She saw the human side. It turned out that Reggie is shortly to be received at Clarence House by Her Majesty the Queen. I said to look out for the Sickert in the corner if it’s the drawing room. But it might be the Garden Room. Boxes from the archive won’t be necessary for conversation. All Reggie has to say is, ‘I saw a play set in this very room. Maybe you have seen it too, Your Majesty.’

Then they began attacking The Spectator, as left-leaning people often do. They won’t have it mentioned or in the house. I thought: what would Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother have done. Simply marvellous. So clever.