Shakespeare wrote more lines for Queen Margaret than he did for King Lear yet we know very little of her.
Jeanie O’Hare re-acquaints us with one of Shakespeare’s major but rarely performed characters in her new play Queen Margaret at Manchester Royal Exchange from September 14 to October 6.
In a production that draws on original language from Shakespeare, director Elizabeth Freestone and Jade Anouka as Margaret retell an iconic moment in British history through the eyes of Margaret of Anjou to open the autumn and winter 2018-19 season.
The young Queen arrives in an unhappy kingdom, festering with plots against the crown, and in retreat from the newly confident France. As North and South fracture into civil war, audiences see Margaret, wife and mother, become a politician and a warrior. Exercising all of the power and influence the throne of England can offer, she is determined to secure the crown for her son.