A really strong performance in a show that made some interesting choices, not all of which worked.
The Wedding Speech is a one-woman show, starring Princess Donnough and written by Cheryl May Coward-Walker, currently playing at the Camden People’s Theatre. It tells the story of Rosemary, with 1 hour to go before she delivers a speech at her mothers wedding, as she struggles to try and create the perfect speech that encapsulates their relationship.
The main thing that I came out of this show thinking, was that Princess Donnough is a great actress. She is incredibly charismatic in this performance, keeping you engaged from start to finish, and really making you root for her character. Within moments of appearing on stage, she is able to get across the nervous apprehension that anyone would have before delivering a big speech, but also tinged with an underlying sadness which gives this performance a really interesting extra element. Despite some of the more outlandish and fourth wall breaking moments, Princess managed to make Rosemary feel very real and grounded and just like someone you might meet in the street.
While I have nothing but praise for Princess’s performance, the same cannot be said for the script. The writing itself, I did really enjoy. The prose flowed nicely with some smart rhyming couplets thrown in, but some aspects of the script seemed bizarre and misplaced. There are some elements of breaking the fourth wall, and in the first few minutes this is utilised in interesting ways (I shan’t spoil it for you, as the surprise is a big part of it), but then this idea seems to entirely disappear for the rest of the show, save for later on asking an audience member for the time. This could have been an interesting device that was explored more, but as it didn’t go anywhere, in hindsight it is just perplexing.
I also found myself actually wanting to know more about Rosemary herself. We know about her relationship with her mother intimately, but other than that, there is precious little that we know about her. This may be intentional, to allow anyone to put themselves in her shoes, but it left me wanting more. I liked this character and wanted to know more about her, and how this difficult relationship with her mother affected other areas of her life. We got glimpses of this as she talked about how her upbringing gave her really strong emotional intelligence, but I would have liked to have seen this explored more. We also find out early in the show that she is taking a pregnancy test, but I was left wondering throughout whether she wanted to be pregnant or not. Was this planned? Was this an accident? Ultimately, I just wanted to know more.
My biggest gripe that I have with this show however, is the wedding speech itself. The decision was made for the speech to be delivered via pre-recorded voice over while Rosemary was offstage. This could have been fine, had it not been for the comedy audience reactions also in the recording. This show, while it does have moments of levity, I would not describe as being a comedic, but this voice over, during what should be one of the dramatic high points of the show, is undercut by amusing audience reactions. This tonal shift didn’t make sense to me, and it was even weirder that this shift happened while there was no one on stage, and just delivered over voice over. The fact that Rosemary then returns to the stage and the tone is certainly not comedic makes this choice even more bizarre. Almost like the voice over was taken from an entirely different show.
Despite my misgivings with some of the choices made, I was still thoroughly entertained (if at sometimes bemused) for the 70-minute run time of this production. I would recommend it as a piece of interesting theatre, that does touch upon (but not heavily explore) some important topics, but I think with a few changes it could be greatly improved.
The Wedding Speech played at the Camden People’s Theatre until Saturday 19th November, and will be embarking on a London tour in 2023 including at the VAULT Festival.