The first production photographs from the UK tour of By Royal Appointment have been released, with Jane Asher as The Queen and Laura Main as her Dresser.
The pictures are out. Robert Day's first production photographs of By Royal Appointment show Jane Asher as The Queen opposite Laura Main as her Dresser, which is the relationship the play is built on.
The production is at The Arts Theatre Cambridge at the moment, and carries on around the UK until 6 February 2027.
David Robb plays The Designer, Matthew Cottle The Milliner and Laura Matthews The Curator. Jeremy Drakes is a Footman and understudies The Designer and The Milliner; Fiona Tong is a Footman and understudies The Queen, her Dresser and The Curator.
Main's casting was announced earlier this month, and we covered it when she joined the company.
Daisy Goodwin wrote the play and Anthony Banks directs, with design by Jonathan Fensom, lighting by Richard Howell, sound by Sarah Weltman and composition by Ben Ringham.
The story is about the sort of power only a Queen has, and the way she uses it: a coat to charm a crowd, a hat chosen to make a point to her own family. She is not, the play has it, much interested in clothes herself. The look is the work of her Designer, her Milliner and, above all, her Dresser, a working-class girl who begins by advising on lipstick shades and ends up the real authority behind the throne. Royal favourites live on borrowed time, though, and so does she.
The tour is produced by Daniel Schumann, Lee Dean and The Arts Theatre Cambridge.
