Horrible Histories bringing ‘Rotten Royals’ touring show to Cambridge Arts Theatre

You can learn more about some of Britain’s most notable kings and queens when Horrible Histories brings its latest touring show, Rotten Royals, to the Cambridge Arts Theatre later this week.

Neal Foster, an actor, writer and director – and the manager of the Birmingham Stage Company, which he founded in 1992 – and Terry Deary, creator of Horrible Histories, have penned a number of shows together, including the Barmy Britain series of West End productions on which Rotten Royals is based.

“What we’ve done is pull together all the scenes that are about the notorious royals that we’ve had over the history of Britain, and we ask the audience to decide whether they love or hate the royals,” explains Neal, who has produced the Horrible Histories stage shows in the UK and abroad since 2005.

Horrible Histories started off as a series of books, written by Terry Deary.

“We meet quite a few of the most famous kings and queens in history; we start with Queen Boudica, we meet King John and his brother Richard the Lionheart, we meet Queen Elizabeth I and James I. We also meet Queen Victoria…

“So we end up with a lovely view, right from Roman up to Victorian history, and see how many of them we think are rotten – like Charles II.

“He is known as a great fun-loving king – he had a lot of personal fun himself – but we also discover that he was the first royal to give official recognition to the Royal African Company, which was one of the biggest slave trading companies in the world, and his brother the Duke of York was even worse when it came to that.

“So we get the good and the bad and the very ugly.”

The kings and queens are all portrayed by just two actors – Jonathan Peck and Megan Parry.

With images of Jonathan in a dress, is there an element of pantomime?

“I wouldn’t say pantomime, but I’d say more Monty Python,” says Neal. “There’s definitely an air of Monty Python about it.

“I mean I was obviously heavily influenced by the Pythons when I was a kid and it imbues itself into a lot of what we do – so there’s often men dressing up as women and women dressing up as men, and banging people on the head and a lot of verbal fun.

“You could say there’s a certain amount of pantomime; we get the audience to join in, there’s a sing-along and we have singing competitions. It’s quite interactive.”

Neal recently directed the Horrible Histories production of ’Orrible Opera for BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

He says the Rotten Royals show, which has been touring the country since April (Cambridge is the last stop on the tour), is for “the whole family”.

He adds: “I often go and see the show, and I can sit next to adults who seem to be enjoying it as much as their children, because it works on so many different levels.

“There’s lots of bum jokes and poo jokes for the very small kids, and there’s lots of interesting facts that even adults will have never have heard of about some of these kings and queens.

“Like some of the people get confused between Mary Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots, so we’ve got a song in there to help you work out which is which.

“We see some of the jobs that people did in Elizabeth I’s reign; I’m not sure many people will know what a ‘gong farmer’ is but we find out what he used to do…

“There’s all sorts of things that adults will just not know.”

To find out what a ‘gong farmer’ is, and to learn more interesting facts about British history, go along to the Cambridge Arts Theatre from this Friday (13 September) to Sunday (15 September) and catch the Rotten Royals duo in action.

Tickets, priced £20-£25, are available from cambridgeartstheatre.com.