Theatre review: Nell Gwynn

This was a drama school production so technically an amateur performance; as usual I'll try to treat it the same as a professional show, since that's what the cast will be hoping to be in next.

Already one of my favourite directors, Jessica Swale made for a promising playwright as well with Blue Stockings, so her latest look at a trailblazing woman from history had to be worth checking out. Swale has been working with some of the LAMDA students around whom she's written Nell Gwynn, about the woman best remembered as Charles II's (in)famous mistress. This does, of course, feature in the play, but its larger concern is with the high profile that got the King's attention in the first place, and Gwynn's place in theatre history as the first woman to act on the Drury Lane stage. A former prostitute who moved on to the barely-more-respectable profession of orange-seller, Nell's (Bathsheba Piepe) confident sales pitch catches the eye of actor Charles Hart (Donal Gallery.) When a rival theatre company makes headlines with an actual female Desdemona (whose topless death scene is completely integral to the plot) Hart convinces impresario Killigrew (Adam Scott-Rowley) that Nell should be their own first "actoress."