Review: Marlowe Theatre's The Party Girls - a triumph of wigs and writing

The Party Girls, a new play by Amy Rosenthal, and the first large scale touring production by the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, tells the story of the ever fascinating Mitford sisters.

I have been intrigued by the Mitford sisters ever since I was a little girl, stealing Mary S Lovell’s gorgeous teal biography off my Nana’s bookshelf and looking at the photographs of six impossibly glamorous, quite eccentric women. Nancy (the novelist), Pamela (the homebody), Diana (the one who married Oswald Mosley), Unity (the one who loved Hitler), Jessica (the runaway Communist) and Debo (the Duchess) scandalised, appalled and enchanted British society for nearly 100 years. Incredibly close as children, the sisters were splintered apart by politics - a journey that the play encapsulates beautifully.

In setting out to write a play about the Mitford sisters, Rosenthal set herself a significant challenge. How to make a play about these scandalous sisters, whose lives were more dramatic than fiction anyway, and keep them grounded, centred, human and relatable, and avoid steering into caricature? She manages marvellously. The sisters’ defining characteristics are there - Nancy’s caustic wit, Diana’s infatuation with Mosley, Unity’s obsession with the Fuhrer, Jessica’s idealism and Debo’s contentment with her upper class life - but Rosenthal ensures they are well rounded, empathetic and sympathetic humans too.

The play is set across three time periods - the 1930s, World War II and late 60s - and we race through the story beats of the sisters’ lives. Much of their fascinating lives are, by necessity, left out, but the main narrative is clear, beautifully weaving in little asides and comments about the moments we don’t see. 

Rosenthal makes Jessica (Decca) our heroine. Emma Noakes playing Jessica, takes her from passionate, idealistic Ballroom Pink to determined, bruised war widow and finally respected, formidable reformist with skill and excellent physical storytelling, without ever losing a sense of childlike vulnerability in her desire to be loved by those she loves. She is matched wonderfully by our romantic hero Bob Treuhaft, played with joy and openness by Joe Coen. Their scenes together play like a Cary Grant film, full of quick wit and suppressed and simmering sexual tension.

But it is when the Mitford sisters are altogether on stage that the play really sparkles. The sense of chaotic, deep love between the sisters is palpable, and the contrast between the joy in the earlier scenes in their childhood home, and the hurt and heartbreak in the later scenes in Nancy’s pastel Paris apartment is delivered exceptionally well.

The casting is exceptionally good in this production. Flora Spencer-Longhurst plays up and down her age range wonderfully, capturing Debo’s youth and contrasting it well with the sophistication and capability of the older Duchess Debo.

Kirsty Besterman’s Nancy is bossy, domineering, jealous, snide, sweet, kind and charming, often all in one scene. She is impossible to like and impossible not to like. It is the most perfect portrayal of Nancy Mitford.

As Unity, Ell Potter has a difficult task of maintaining the human behind the Nazi fanatic, and she succeeds marvellously. We may not like Unity, but we do feel for her.

But the standout sister is Elisabeth Dermot Walsh as Diana. Diana was a fascinating, charming and repugnant person, and Dermot Walsh portrays that perfectly. She is warm, kind, loving and lovable; unrepentant, repellent and terrifying. She is Diana Mitford. It is a powerhouse performance.

The costuming in this play was superb, defining the different eras clearly for us as we moved between the 1930s, World War II and 1960s at a quick pace. But my standout in this production was Daisy Ivan’s wigs. The way the wigs transformed the actors across different ages and into the Mitford sisters was amazing. When I saw Dermot Walsh as older Diana for the first time I got goosebumps, as she looked exactly like her; as though Diana had stepped out of a photograph and onto the stage at the Marlowe.

The sisters famously rarely referred to one another by name, instead using a bewildering array of nicknames for one another - Nancy for example was Naunce, Lady, Susan, Soo and Heartless. Rosenthal brings this into the play from the moment we begin, and a page in the programme with a quick reference as to who was who could have been very useful.

My only (tiny) historical gripe was this: Debo tells Nancy that she has met someone - Andrew Cavendish - in a scene set in the early 1940s. Nancy replies that Debo may be a Duchess after all, referencing Debo’s desire stated in the first act to marry a Duke. When Debo and Andrew Cavendish married in 1941, Andrew was the ‘spare’ to the Duchy of Devonshire. It wasn’t until his elder brother was killed in 1944 that Andrew became the heir, and subsequently the Duke of Devonshire and owner of Chatsworth House. Does it matter? Not really, but I do think it says a lot about Debo that she was content to be an upper class lady. She did not marry to become a Duchess, but when she did, she rose to the occasion magnificently and carried Chatsworth forward with vision and foresight, sharp business acumen and intelligence. She’s underestimated, and I think it is important to remember how she was as determined and driven as any of her sisters.

For a play set nearly 100 years ago, Rosenthal’s writing illustrates the clear, compelling and terrifying parallels between the world in late 1930s and today. Diana’s final line will make your blood run cold. But there is hope too. We all just have to be more dauntless, more fierce, more determined and more brave in our pursuit of what is right, and speak out, even if it is to confront those we love the most. We must all be more Decca.

If you have seen the play, and want to learn more, I highly recommend The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell (2001, but not bettered yet) or The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley (2007).

The production is now on tour around the UK, playing at:

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry - Tuesday 9th - Saturday 13th September

Malvern Festival Theatre - Tuesday 16th - Saturday 20th September

Eastbourne Devonshire Park Theatre - Tuesday 23rd - Saturday 27th September

Oxford Playhouse - Tuesday 30th September - Saturday 4th OCtober

Birmingham Rep - Monday 6th - Saturday 11 October