This G. B. Shaw play comes as an extra on the Maggie Smith MILLIONAIRESS DVD (putting the horse before the CART?), reversing received critical opinion on these late works. The reasoning soon becomes clear as this is an also-ran production that only fitfully brings out the issues & compromises variously embedded in governance, monarchy & democracy that Shaw touches on. Nigel Davenport is fine as the King who must sign off on making himself an irrelevant figurehead in a constitutional monarchy, and it’s a kick to see young Helen Mirren as his mistress, yet they are both acted off the screen when Prunella Scales makes her belated appearance as the Queen in the final act. Her magnetism unbalances both the structure & the argument. The play has been faintly modernized (helicopters, minimalist interior design) which makes it all seem less rather than more topical, while the direction feels catch-as-catch-can, but Shaw’s imagination in the last act is just too strong to resist with both America & the King turning tables and confounding all expectations.
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