Lord Arthur's Bed at King's Head Theatre

Lord Arthur's Bed at King's Head Theatre

15 March, 2010
by: Nuria

Nuria Haering enjoys the historic exploration within contemporary narrative of Martin Lewton's Lord Arthur's Bed.

First things first: yes, there’s full frontal nudity and simulated sex acts in Lord Arthur’s Bed, which runs at the King’s Head Theatre until 10th April. But the play, spanning 70 uninterrupted minutes, is, ahem, a much more solid package than what this sole fact might imply.


There are only two actors and one set (a bedroom), but the sparseness works well in the intimate space of Islington’s classic theatre pub. It allows for the play to have a self-reflexive angle. In the opening scene, gay couple Jim and Donald address the audience directly, informing us that they are one year into a civil partnership. However, love has soured what was once a “fun gay life”, laments Jim.


Donald, meanwhile, has become “addicted” to researching the story behind a public trial for sodomy whose principal defendant was Lord Arthur Clinton MP, one-time inhabitant of the pair’s London flat. This actual event, which took place in 1870 (a whole 25 years before Oscar Wilde’s more enduringly infamous scandal), involved Frederick Park, aka Fanny, and Ernest Boulton, aka Stella, two actors who cross-dressed not just on, but off stage too. Playing wife to Lord Arthur was one of Stella’s many dalliances.


Writer and director Martin Lewton’s framing of Fanny and Stella’s story within a contemporary narrative is ingenious. Donald convinces Jim to impersonate these obscure figures and re-enact imagined scenes from their lives. For Jim, who struggles with his gay identity, the process is uncomfortable. For Donald, however, it proves cathartic. As they affect varying accents, don frocks and role-play indecent trysts, their issues gradually rise to the surface. It’s a real treat to see actors Spencer Charles Noll (Donald) and Ruaridh Murray (Jim) displaying such versatility, and a hoot to hear them use mock-Victorian sexual slang (think raunch in the style of Tennyson).


A couple of dramatic moments feel slightly overdone, especially when Jim veers towards the cliché of tortured, self-hating homosexual. But they can be excused on the basis that their pathos provides a necessary juxtaposition to the light-hearted playfulness of other scenes. Indeed, the issues explored resonate not just with a gay audience, but with anyone who embodies any kind of identity that is, or has been, the subject of debate. The climax, in which Jim and Donald re-enact Lord Arthur’s trial (some dialogue is even recited verbatim from existing documents), is exhilarating as well as thought-provoking.


For a show put together on such a modest budget, Lord Arthur’s Bed hits the mark. It's poignant yet funny, salacious yet dignified. The interweaving, time-skipping narratives reminded me of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, and it would be truly spectacular to see this work developed into a similar type of production. The story is more than worthy, and its themes deserve to reach a wider audience. 

Lord Arthur's Bed runs at King's Head Theatre until 10th April

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Nuria