19 June – 12 July

Whether the 5^th Marquis of Anglesey was homosexual or not, history does not record and in any case would be irrelevant to the story. However, his exploits in self-promotion and the ‘squandering’ of a vast family fortune in the pursuit of his art and lifestyle did mark him out amongst the Victorian nobility as someone whose, ‘wildest folly and extravagance’, led to a life lived in vain. Today we may view ‘The Dancing Marquis’ as the nonpareil of someone born out of their time. Flamboyant to the point of absurdity, Henry Cecil Paget has been lying in wait for the ilk of Seiriol Davies to colour his memory in the vivid hues it deserves.

This musical play will undoubtedly find a justifiably enraptured audience. Some one hundred and fifty years after the fact and coinciding with the upcoming release of a film, Madfabulous, about the 5^th Marquis, this second run (the first following the 2017 Edinburgh Festival production) will help give the world a new(ish) gay icon.

Born to dance and be seen, Henry Paget set about turning the chapel on the family estate in Anglesey into The Gaiety Theatre in order to stage his vanity productions. Composer and writer Davies takes the lead role in the two-hander with Matthew Blake playing, with some panache, all the other characters, be they male or female.

Davies glows with affection for his subject who he plays with energy levels at max throughout. The play whizzes along, episode to episode, from schooldays to betrothal, acting days and divorce, with hardly a pause for breath. On the way poking the the Victorian elite and its education system in the eye, before hitting the road as licensed Bohemians in touring productions of everything from panto to Shakespeare. All the while, as befits such a flamboyant character, delivering a dish of delightfully unfettered silliness.

The script is witty and uncluttered with plenty of nods to contemporary themes; the journalist from the Daily Mail is represented as Mephistopheles (Mr Blake) and the character, Alexander Keith, an actor (Mr Blake again) quips, ‘I am an actor, everyone loves hearing what I have to say about things.’

Music from the onstage band led by Dylan Townley bounces joyously along, tight and theatre-filling.  Numbers like, ‘Mainstream Entertainment’, fit neatly into the loosely constructed story, helping the sense of cohesion. The set, a Steam Punk-in-Cuba feeling design by Hayley Grindle, with sparkly costumes by Ryan Dawson Laight, are lit with an appropriate eye to the general pizazz by Robbie Butler. Visually the show is everything one might want from the story of a Victorian eccentric.

It’s a joyous paean to a cross-dressing individualist wrapped in a Victorian tragicomedy of identity and broken dreams.

★★★★☆  Graham Wyles, 26 June 2025

Photography credit: Pamela Raith