FringeReview UK 2026
Edward II
Alex Pearson Productions in association with Glass Splinters
Genre: Adaptation, Classical and Shakespeare, Drama, Fringe Theatre, Short Plays, Theatre, Tragedy
Venue: Jack Studio Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Here Marlowe writes a through-play that never sags in the middle, coherent and inexorable. Adapted, edited and directed by Alex Pearson, the lean miracle of this all-female Edward II plays at the Jack Studio Theatre, Brockley, for Alex Pearson Productions and Glass Splinters, till April 18.
Pearson has devised an Edward II that’s fleet, clear, crisply compelling and as sly as Marlowe: something other productions could profit from.
Review
“I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits.” This production of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II delivers a whiff of that luxury; even shorn as this passage is. The 100-minute result is to reinforce the sense that finally Marlowe learned off his friend Thomas Kyd, a playwright and craftsman of genius. Shakespeare learned even more. Here though Marlowe writes a through-play that never sags in the middle, coherent and inexorable. Adapted, edited and directed by Alex Pearson, the lean miracle of this all-female Edward II plays at the Jack Studio Theatre, Brockley, for Alex Pearson Productions and Glass Splinters, till April 18.
Six actors multi-role, with the exception of Natalie Harper playing Edward II throughout. It echoes Wanamaker productions, like the March 2023 all-women Titus Andronicus, where candle-chopping women invert the violence visited on them. Most of all though this new venture mirrors the six mainly Asian and Black women of Yellow Earth: who performed Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Parts I and II, conflated to three hours in Arcola’s Studio 2, in March 2017. There, the ethnic descendants and victims of Tamburlaine and indeed his cheerleader Marlowe were processed, repurposed, purged, and distilled. This production doesn’t have as recognisably strong a rationale, but still compels. And the tight ensemble work well together.
Most of all some historical turgidity is avoided (even Marlowe couldn’t dodge that), and Marlowe’s humour shines. There’s a playfulness here, again recalling the Titus, different to the inexorable power of Yellow Earth’s Tamburlaine.
There’s occasional confusion over doubling: particularly the excellent Emma Louise-Price as both conspirator Warwick and straight afterwards king’s brother Kent (her other roles like Spencer chum Baldock (sporting a sash) and later co-jailor Maltravers are contextually clearer). A sartorial slash of blue, say, against the dominant black would help here.
Eve Oakley’s set is dominated by the dais-raised central couch, bedecked with diaphanous curtains (later symbolically torn down), to disclose a lounging Gaveston (Elinor Machen-Fortune). Oakley’s costumes are broadly contemporary (as they were for Marlowe), with witty props like hats, swords, a leather coat. They’re undistracting save for welcome witty additions. They occasion some theatre moments with tying and untying of ties.
There’s some adroit lighting in Steve Lowe’s offstage red and other effects, mostly luxurious echoes; and Hannah Claney’s visceral sound effects. Which include an unexpected moment of late German romanticism; in Ethel Smyth’s early string quartet.
As realised here, this is a play of emotional cats’ cradles. Some readings of Edward II focus more on the prime reasons Edward was deposed: wanton expenditure on Gaveston and fripperies, letting the country pine. There’s a little of this, though necessarily given the constraints: focus is personal, the political confined to court jostling and dynamics.
Edward’s consuming and flagrant love for Gaveston in front of even his wife causes nobles Lancaster (Victoria Howell) and Warwick (Louise-Price) to spearhead a rebellion which ends their lives after repeated banishings and un-banishings of Gaveston. Harper exudes the obsessive lack of restraint in continual pining and brief heedless ecstasy with Machen-Fortune’s hedonist; whilst disdaining poor Isabella (poignant interplay here with Alison Young) and petulant scorn for nobles. Less blatant than Gaveston but more deadly. Harper draws out on a rack the crown-resigning scene that Shakespeare stole for Richard II.
Louise-Price, seething as Warwick with a vocal bite and venom, also morphs into conflicted Kent, the king’s brother, and piteous Baldock, one half of the Spencer-Baldock team who replace murdered Gaveston at the halfway point. There’s real tenderness here between Louise-Price and Howell; as these two fawners (less pernicious than Gaveston, but Spencer fulfilling a similar role) slowly realise their plight. Louise-Price expresses a certain nobility in distress with the elegiac lines for them both. A bit more than Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, though a fleck of that emerges here. Finally Louise-Price emerges as Maltravers, also paired with Victoria Howell’s Gourney as she was with her Spencer and Lancaster. Louise-Price grasps Marlovian light and shade, etched in acid.
As Leicester Srababni Sen escapes the first executions to morph into prime antagonist Mortimer, later Queen’s lover, finally controller of her and the young prince. To Mortimer Sen brings brooding scorn, a flick of the Machiavel. There’s menacing interplay with Machen-Fortune’s Prince Edward when his uncle Kent is imperilled; and steely blandishments to Young’s now-anxious Isabella. To Mortimer’s final moments Sen brings a streak of nobility.
Machen-Fortune’s opening soliloquy relishes in Marlovian sensuality, though shorn of much luxury, if still announcing “those parts which men delight to see” now less gender-specific: the full Marlowe might be banned! Machen-Fortune has the slink and sass of Gaveston, genuine sexual passion mixed with other self-seeking gratifications: an occasionally murderous scorn for enemies and petulance towards the court; including luckless Queen Isabella. Traditionally Edward’s murderer Lightborne has been taken by the same actor: here Machen-Fortune apparates as an impressive Villanelle in a black leather coat, seductively playing with the king who knows she’s the murderer. As doddery Archbishop of Canterbury and more, as the appealing conflicted young prince Edward (later Edward III), Machen-Fortune impresses with variety and affect.
Alison Young as Queen Isabella certainly delivers in her heteronormative role, full of warmth and desire for the king’s love, pathos and eventually steeliness when she realises she can never attain it. Young brings a gradual warming towards Mortimer, a credible slow glow as both solace and slaking of natural thwarted desire: but never expressed beyond the bounds of court, where nearly all her scenes occur. As Bishop of Coventry Young morphs impressively in an archbishop’s hat (as does Machen-Fortune) issuing threats; and in scarf-muffled messenger roles.
Movement is well-blocked, in this relatively intimate space, alongside Scott Howland’s excellent fight direction. The real bonus in all-female productions of classics is that relative vocal dynamics aren’t skewed by roarers. There’s insights to be gained if obvious braggadocio is recessed. Performative gender roles here foreground some nuance, and a lot of Marlovian fun. It has to be admitted the sheer tragic arc and fall isn’t yet delivered with the intensity it might be. That should pick up during the run. Pearson has though devised an Edward II that’s fleet, clear, crisply compelling and as sly as Marlowe: something other productions could profit from. It deserves extra plaudits for that alone.
Stage Manager/Technician Mig Dulevicius, Fight Chorographer Scott Howland,
Special Thanks to Genie Khmelnitski, Mel Chetwood, Julie Osmon, Pepe Pryke, Penny Horner, Julia Urbonowicz, Leigh Hayward, Michael Kingsbury at the Golden Goose, Kate Bannister and Karl Swinyard and all at the Brockley Jack
