Edinburgh Fringe: Sara Crowe presents Queen Victoria in her own words

Sara Crowe can remember her first – and until last week only – appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe.

It was 40 years ago, and it involved leotards and loo rolls – two things which definitely won’t feature in her portrayal of Queen Victoria for her return to the festival this month.

“I was here in 1984 or ’85, with my friend, Ann Bryson. It was the first thing we did after leaving drama school, a show we wrote and performed on The Mound. I remember travelling through Edinburgh on a bus and wearing a leotard, which I wouldn’t be seen dead in now,” she laughed.

“We didn’t know how to get a crowd. We did things like put loo rolls in a circle and asked people to stand on them, but that didn’t go very well and half of it blew away. The Vicious Boys [comedy duo Andy Smart and Angelo Abela] helped us learn how to get a crowd. Eventually we learned and passed the hat round for pennies.

“It was a complete grassroots way to start, but a lot of fun as well. It was the start of a cabaret act that Ann and I did for a few years, kicking us into that alternative comedy world.”

Sara and Ann, also known as The Flaming Hamsters, would go on to star in a long-running series of adverts for Philadelphia Cheese in the mid-90s, as well as a film, The Steal, and sitcom Sometimes Never.

Sara’s other past roles include Four Weddings And A Funeral, EastEnders, Martin’s Close, and on the West End stage, Private Lives, Twelfth Night, The Constant Wife and Hay Fever.

She has returned to the Fringe after four decades as part of the cast of Queen. Written entirely in Queen Victoria’s own words – taken from her many letters and journals – it tells the story of the late monarch’s life. It is a revival of Katrina Hendrey’s acclaimed one-woman show, An Evening With Queen Victoria, which Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales performed for 28 years, starting in 1980.

Julian Machin’s reworking of the play sees three actors play the role – Grace Darling as young Victoria, Sara in the middle period and, in audio form, Prunella as the older Victoria.

Despite being diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2014, and recently turning 92, the actor recorded her part, providing continuity with the original play.

“She’s a complete guiding light,” Sara said about Prunella. “They gave us the recordings she did at the time, and also the one she recorded last year which is part of the show. Her voice is so recognisable and she has really helped to guide Grace and I with her interpretation. We are all playing the same person, so we are trying to be a united Victoria.

“I never got to see the original version with Prunella, but I know she says she is good at playing queens and she really is. There is an authority in her voice, but also charm and wit. She also plays tragedy very well.”

Described as a sort of prequel to The Crown, Victoria makes use of the late Queen’s abundance of writing.

“There’s so much material to mine from her life,” Sara continued. “Some of the things she wrote are very modern, and funny too. She has a severe ‘we are not amused’ image, but that is a cliched perception because when you read the diaries there was a different person behind that facade.”

Sara is glad to be back in Scotland for a month, having been born and spending her early years here.

“I was born in Irvine and we had a flat in Ardrossan until I was six. My dad was posted down south, near to London, for work and we went back and forth for a while before staying down there. I still have cousins here, but I don’t get up as much as I would like. I love Scotland, though, and have so many nostalgic memories of growing up here.”

Queen, Drawing Room, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, until August 25, 1pm