Theatre of the absurd?

Spoiler alert. If you're planning to see King Charles III in the West End any time soon, don't read on.

I saw it on Tuesday at Wyndham's Theatre and the second act in particular justified all the great reviews.

Briefly, the play imagines the period between the death of the Queen and the coronation of Charles.

At the interval I wasn't entirely sure whether it was a comedy, satire or drama. The opening scene felt like a medieval drama but the audience was soon laughing at the depiction of several well-known public figures.

The second act wasn't without humour but the genre was much clearer. This was drama bordering on tragedy, with nods to MacBeth and King Lear.

Read the reviews if you want to know the full plot. The brief version is this:

Charles becomes king and one of his first tasks is to sign his consent to legislation restricting press freedom following the hacking scandal.

He refuses and there follows a stand off between Parliament and the Crown that threatens the abolition of the monarchy.

To cut to the chase, Charles is forced to abdicate in favour of William.

Parliament has to prevail but Charles is portrayed as a stubborn (even heroic) man of principle.

For all the laughs, when the moment came for Charles to sign the abdication papers there was total silence.

Tim Pigott-Smith could have turned Charles into a bumbling caricature but he played him with great dignity.

The whole cast was strong and it's a difficult to pick out anyone but I will mention Lydia Wilson who played a scheming, highly intelligent yet very appealing Kate Middleton.

There were one or two jarring moments – the 'ghost' of Diana didn't really work, Harry was portrayed as a weak, adolescent buffoon, the Blair-like Labour PM was a more direct and honest figure than the two-faced Tory leader – but overall I'd give it four (out of five) stars.

I must also recommend Shakespeare In Love which I saw at the Noel Coward Theatre before Christmas.

Based on the film it was described to me in advance as a musical. Well, it's not.

Thankfully it's a play with music and if you loved the film (which I do) you'll enjoy this light-hearted and hugely entertaining production.

Update on Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 18:07 by Simon Clark

The last time I visited Wyndham's Theatre I was producing a variety show on that very stage.

Alongside my day job as a freelance journalist I was a paid events organiser for an organisation with 40,000 members in the UK and more than double that in America.

To mark their golden anniversary in 1996 they invited members worldwide to take part in a week-long series of events. I organised two of the more ambitious ones.

In Manchester I hired the Coronation Street set on the now defunct Granada Studios Tour theme park and we had a party with a live band for 400 people on the cobbled street.

I can't remember much about it but I think it was a success. In truth I was more interested in the variety show we were putting on in London seven days later.

I'd already produced a series of music or light entertainment events featuring members of the society in smaller venues such as the BBC Concert Hall and the Royal Academy of Music but this time I wanted to use a bona fide West End theatre.

You can hire West End theatres for one-off events but you generally have to work around whatever set they're using at the time.

I looked at a number of theatres but I chose Wyndham's because it was the only one that was going to be 'dark' on the date we wanted.

It was also in the heart of the West End (opposite Leicester Square tube station) and it was a perfect size (750 seats).

I enlisted the help of a former producer of Top of the Pops (and, er, Jim'll Fix It) to direct the show and that was crucial because he knew what he was doing!

It wasn't just his technical expertise. He was completely unflappable and knew how to handle every performer, including the diva who had had a US number one in 1961!

Actually we had a petty good line-up (including musicians, a magician and a mathematician!) and the show was a huge success. It also sold out.

To this day I remember the theatre manager congratulating me in the bar after the show and expressing complete astonishment that we had pulled it off.

Funnily enough, none of this came back to me while I was at Wyndham's the other night. I only thought about it when I was writing the post above.

Oh well, it was 19 years ago.