The queen goes on a transformational journey...
Playing the queen? Well of course, it’s impossible not to think of Queen Elizabeth II when you do so, says Helena Lymbery who steps into the monarch’s shoes at Chichester Festival Theatre in The BFG.
Adding to the enjoyment of it all is the fact that this is a queen who goes on a fascinating journey – a real transformation.
“At the beginning I think the queen represents the status quo,” Helena explains. “She represents repression. She is compressed. She represents a figurehead within the patriarchy who thinks she has power and autonomy but really she doesn't have any at all. In fact she represents a figure that is lonely emotionally, a figure who is emotionally stunted.”
But all that changes when little Sophie and the BFG enter her world: “This little girl brings the queen face to face with a giant and there is this new three-way friendship, this new three-way relationship that liberates the queen and that completely changes everything. To begin with, everything is being done for her and she's not unhappy and it's a good life but suddenly she wakes up and goes on this journey towards her own self-realisation as she embraces a new freedom to be who she is.
“She is terribly lonely. That's the big thing but there is something about meeting Sophie. Everything that happens is really transformational for the giant and for the queen. You get stuck in these tramlines, but it is about what happens if you meet something else from outside your boundaries, something coming from outside your routine and about what happens when you allow that to come in. It's an extraordinary opportunity for an older woman.”
The play is a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company and enjoyed a very happy run in Stratford before coming to Chichester. After Chichester it heads off to Singapore.
Helena is loving the thought of performing it in south-east Asia, but for the moment she is focusing on enjoying the show in the moment, her first time in Chichester where the play, after success in Stratford, is very much seeming a new adventure again in a very different theatre.
“It feels very much a new thing again, and I'm really, really fired up about being in Chichester. It just feels so different. Stratford is a thrust stage but it is high whereas in Chichester it's like widescreen with a lower ceiling as well. And the audience are right there around you, on three sides. They really do envelop you and so it's a different kind of energy. It does feel very different. Here in Chichester it feels very tight in terms of the focus. You don't have to perform quite so much. You don't have to get your pen out and draw big black lines around what you are doing!”
The BFG is at Chichester Festival Theatre until Saturday, April 11.