AUDIENCES at Bath Theatre Royal will see the first performances of By Royal Appointment, a new play by Daisy Godwin, starring Anne Reid and Caroline Quentin, from Thursday 5th to Saturday 14th June.

The production will be directed by Bristol-born Dominic Dromgoole, former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe. Booking opens to Theatre Royal Bath members from tomorrow (11th January) with general booking from Monday 20th.

The play explores the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II, played by Anne Reid, and her dresser, played by Caroline Quentin, and how the pair created the public image of the world’s longest reigning monarch. After opening at Bath, By Royal Appointment will tour to Cheltenham, Leeds, Malvern, Southampton and Guildford.

The late Queen Elizabeth II was famous for her discretion. She never said anything in public that could ruffle the lightest of feathers. But she had one way of expressing what she really thought – through her wardrobe.

By Royal Appointment is a funny, poignant and celebratory new play about the kind of power that only a Queen can wield – she charms the world through coats and admonishes her family through a carefully chosen hat. But the Queen herself is uninterested in fashion, her look is managed by her designer, her milliner and most powerful of all, her dresser, a working-class girl who goes from advising the Queen on the colour of her lipsticks to the real power behind the throne. But the dresser, like all royal favourites is living on borrowed time.

Anne Reid’s many theatre, television and film performances include her BAFTA Award-nominated role as Celia in Last Tango in Halifax from 2012 to 2020. She was first seen on television in the 1950s in Hancock’s Half Hour and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Among other roles, she played Ann Moore-Martin in The Sixth Commandment, Jean in Dinnerladies, Mrs Thackeray in Upstairs Downstairs, Vera Small in Ladies of Letters, Brenda in Life Begins and Valerie Barlow in Coronation Street. She won the London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year for her role in the 2003 film The Mother alongside Daniel Craig. Her stage work includes Hedda Gabler at London’s Old Vic with Sheridan Smith, Into the Woods at the Royal Opera House, and West End productions of A Woman of No Importance, The Epitaph of George Dillon and The York Realist. At Bath, she has appeared in Pride and Prejudice in 1987, Wild Oats in 1995, A Family Affair in 2000 and Fracked! in 2017.

Caroline Quentin has twice won the British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actress and a Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards. Recent stage credits include Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre, and Mrs Warren’s Profession at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2022 and on tour. Her many television roles range from Dorothy in Men Behaving Badly to Mrs Bumble in Dickensian. She has presented several television series including ITV’s Cornwall with Caroline Quentin and BBC2’s The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes.

Dominic Dromgoole was artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe from 2006 to 2016. He launched a new theatre company, Classic Spring, which produced a year-long celebration of Oscar Wilde in 2017/18, directing the first play in the season, A Woman of No Importance, in the West End. For the Globe, he created a UK-wide touring operation and toured internationally, culminating in a two-year tour of Hamlet which travelled to every country in the world. In 2012, he directed the Globe to Globe Festival, which hosted companies from 37 different countries.

By Royal Appointment is Daisy Goodwin’s debut play. For television, her writing credits include the ITV historical drama series Victoria. Her novels include The Last Duchess, The Fortune Hunter, The American Heiress, Victoria and Diva, and she has edited eight poetry anthologies. As a producer, her credits include Grand Designs and Escape to the Country.