A new trailer for By Royal Appointment puts Jane Asher on screen as The Queen and Laura Main as her Dresser, with the UK tour running until 6 February 2027.
It opens in the stalls. A full house settles, a programme falls open on the cast's headshots, and then the curtain goes up on the play itself. The trailer for the touring production of By Royal Appointment runs just over a minute, and it is a first proper look at Daisy Goodwin's play in motion.
Each of the four leads gets a title card. Jane Asher is The Queen and Laura Main is her Dresser, followed by David Robb as The Designer and Matthew Cottle as The Milliner. The lighting swings from warm amber to cold teal as the cut goes on, past a line of royal outfits on stands and the Queen waving in a bright orange coat and hat. It ends on the tour poster.
The trailer is also on YouTube.
Laura Matthews completes the principal company as The Curator. Jeremy Drakes and Fiona Tong both play a Footman; Drakes also covers The Designer and The Milliner, while Tong stands by for The Queen, her Dresser and The Curator.
The play is about how Elizabeth II made her views known without ever voicing them. Its Queen has little interest in clothes, yet a coat can win over a crowd and a well-picked hat can put a relative in their place. Choosing them is left to her Designer, her Milliner and, most of all, her Dresser, who comes from a working-class background, starts out advising on lipstick shades and ends up as the real influence at court. Royal favourites seldom last, and she is no exception.
Goodwin, who created ITV's Victoria, wrote the play. Anthony Banks directs, with design by Jonathan Fensom, lighting design by Richard Howell, sound design by Sarah Weltman and composition by Ben Ringham. Daniel Schumann, Lee Dean and The Arts Theatre Cambridge produce the tour, which opened in Cambridge on 24 September. The first production photographs, by Robert Day, followed at the end of that month.
The tour's published dates still to come:
- 20-24 October 2026: Chelmsford Theatre, Chelmsford
- 10-14 November 2026: York Theatre Royal, York
- 12-16 January 2027: His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen
- 18-23 January 2027: Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester
- 26-30 January 2027: King's Theatre, Edinburgh
- 2-6 February 2027: Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury
