Watermill Theatre announces casting for VICTORIA: A QUEEN UNBOUND
The Watermill Theatre has announced casting for the world premiere of Victoria: A Queen Unbound, a new play by Daisy Goodwin, creator of ITV’s Victoria, which runs from 27 March-9 May.
“Diaries survive while feelings slip away.
They are the skeleton on which posterity puts flesh.”
Osborne House 1901. As Victoria faces the final days of her reign, she clings to her diaries, the carefully kept record of a life defined by love, duty and profound loss. Into this certainty comes her younger self, forcing the older Victoria to confront memories she’s chosen to bury and truths she’s chosen to forget.
Victoria and Albert are celebrated as one of history’s great love stories. A devoted marriage with nine children, and then a young widow dedicated to his memory. At least that is the version written down. But does writing something make it true? Looking back at a young queen, this new play tells the story of a woman pregnant for most of her 20s and 30s, gradually surrendering her strength and authority to her husband, and growing increasingly lonely in her crumbling marriage.
The cast for Victoria: A Queen Unbound includes Lydia Bakelmun (Antigone, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) as Beatrice, Amanda Boxer (To Kill A Mockingbird, West End) as Victoria, and Steve Chusak (2:22 A Ghost Story, West End) as Dr Reid. They are joined by Stephen Fewell (Doctor Young, National Theatre) as Bertie, Rowan Polonski (The Comedy of Errors, RSC/Barbican Theatre) as Albert, and Jessica Rhodes (Stranger Things: The First Shadow, West End) as Young Victoria.
The creative team includes director Sophie Drake, set and costume designer Alex Berry, lighting designer Ben Jacobs, sound designer and composer Asaf Zohar, movement and intimacy director Asha Jennings-Grant, dialect coach Elspeth Morrison, casting director Cydney Beech, and casting adviser Matthew Dewsbury.
Director Sophie Drake said: “We have brought together an extraordinary company of actors and creative team to bring Daisy Goodwin’s brilliant new play, Victoria: A Queen Unbound, to life. The play explores the complexity of how we choose to be remembered in the face of one’s own mortality, while delving into our enduring fascination with what unfolds behind the closed doors of Britain’s monarchy. I cannot wait for audiences to experience it.”
Writer Daisy Goodwin will be interviewed by her brother, historian Jason Goodwin, following the performance on 21 April.
For more info on Victoria: A Queen Unbound, please click here.