Historical fantasy is always an interesting path to go down. Take a bundle of actual historical facts and then make some modern assumptions, add some insight and some damn good songs, and you may have a smash hit on your hands. The Queen Is Mad is the story of 16th-century Spanish noble Joanna of Castile, who was also known as Juana la loca, or Joanna the Mad.
We open in the modern day, with two people looking at a statue of Joanna, and then we quickly move into the story, in which a young Joanna is portrayed as a progressive and well-read person. We have three performers in total, two men and one woman. Maria Coyne plays Joanna throughout and leads the show. Her performance is incredibly strong in every sense of the word. The vocals are fantastic, and we instantly empathise with Joanna’s plight.
Robert Finlayson plays many men, but specifically Joanna’s father, King Ferdinand II of Aragon. He’s presented here as an almost psychotic tyrant, and as the lead villain, he gets some of the best lines. Brian Raferety also plays assorted men, but primarily Joanna’s husband, Philip the Fair, an archduke who would be king. He’s mostly cast as a weak-willed weasel; Starscream to Ferdinand’s Megatron, to use a very STARBURST metaphor. Both are fantastic in their roles, especially in the sense that the channel focuses on the main character, Joanna of Castile.
The fringe show we saw was a condensed version of the show. It was simply staged, and this allowed us to enjoy the performances more.
The show’s message is that there is hope for the future and that we can do better as a society. It is a defiant stab at the patriarchy and the creeping rise of tyranny. Though this show is likely to be compared to Six, it’s much more like Hamilton in the sense that it romanticises a historical figure to make a point about the modern day.
The Queen Is Mad honours a much misunderstood historical figure, framing them in a modern political context (in a very broad way), an approach that’s popular in the West. Ending on a powerful message, this show is one to watch.
You can book tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe show here and learn more about the show as well as future dates here.
