Maxine Peake stages Betty Boothroyd's life in comedy musical: 'This is me letting rip'

Maxine Peake playing Meredith Ankle playing Betty Boothroyd in Betty! A Sort of Musical

The first female Speaker of the House of Commons is having her life story told on stage - but rather than being a dry political drama, it sees actor Maxine Peake sing in her first musical and return to her comedy roots.

Betty Boothroyd never fulfilled her youthful dreams of high-kicking her way to showbiz stardom.

She discovered she wasn't cut out to be a chorus-line showgirl at the London Palladium, so her stint as a member of the Tiller Girls dance troupe after World War Two was short-lived.

But her flair for performing wasn't wasted.

She moved onto a different public stage when she pursued her other passion, politics, and ended up with a starring role in the House of Commons as the first Madam Speaker from 1992 to 2000.

"Politicians, like Tiller Girls, are public performers," she wrote in her autobiography. "They forget it at their peril."

Maxine Peake agrees. "The worlds of politics and theatre, I think, do collide," she says. "My granddad always used to say to me, 'Politicians, Maxine, are frustrated actors.' And she really has that charisma and presence."

Betty (now Baroness) Boothroyd is admired for the way she worked the crowd in the Commons. That has inspired Peake and co-writer and co-star Seiriol Davies to tell her life story on stage.

"We just felt she was someone to celebrate," Peake says. "You look at her achievements. It's what she stands for, and her work ethic, what she achieved, what her beliefs were.

"And then when you start with somebody who used to be a Tiller Girl, you think, well, this could be fun, especially for a musical."

Betty Boothroyd first stood for Parliament in 1957, eventually getting elected in 1973

As well as deciding against the predictable idea of a straight and serious biographical play, the title of Peake and Davies's show suggests it isn't quite a regular musical either.

Betty! A Sort of Musical opened at Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre on Saturday. The "sort of" in the name refers to the fact it's a show within a show - following an amateur dramatic group in Lady Boothroyd's home town of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, who are themselves attempting to stage a musical about their local heroine.

Each member of the fictional Dewsbury Players takes turns to portray Lady Boothroyd and perform a song about a different stage of her life. Each tune goes on a different flight of fantasy, with Grease and James Bond-themed numbers and a Queen-inspired Boothroydian Rhapsody.

Peake has become known mainly for TV dramas like Silk

"If we're in a Bond film or a kitchen sink drama, they all then get elevated to the level of absurdity," Davies explains.

He adds: "We make no promises that things are biographically factually correct, although we think there is some truth in all of the moments. But it is not a bio-musical. It is a musical about people making myths about a woman they love."

• Listen to Maxine Peake talking about Betty! on BBC Radio 4 Front Row

Davies says he was inspired by Lady Boothroyd's general "fabulousness" as well as her "explicit glamour and showmanship".

On top of that: "I think she's a unifying figure. If someone has heard of Betty, the chances are they'll at least admire her, or if not, be slightly obsessed with her.

"But if someone hasn't heard of her, I just have to tell them she used to be kick-line chorus girl and the KGB tried to honeytrap her, and then she rose to the second-highest commoner rank in the land or whatever.

"That is a story, whatever side your bread is buttered politically."

Victoria Wood gave Peake her big break in her sitcom Dinnerladies

The characters in the Dewsbury am-dram group have their bread buttered on various sides, but they agree Lady Boothroyd is, as Peake believes too, a symbol of democratic respectability and stability compared with today's politicians.

"She unified the House of Commons with her skill and wit and intelligence. I felt very much I've missed that."

Peake plays Meredith Ankle, matriarch of the am-dram group and owner of Ankle Carpets. It's hard not to detect the influence of Victoria Wood - who gave Peake her first break in Dinnerladies - in the way she is mining humour from the most mundane situations.

"She's such a big inspiration, even before I worked with her, growing up," Peake says of her late mentor.

'Not as many comedy parts'

Betty! is a return to comedy for Peake, who has gone on to forge her career mainly in serious (and often harrowing) dramas like Three Girls, about the Rotherham child sex grooming scandal; Anne, playing Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams; and Mike Leigh's historical tub-thumper Peterloo.

"Initially, I wasn't Meredith when we first started writing," Peake says. "And then the more I wrote, the more I really wanted to play Meredith, because it's something I've been crying out to do for a long time.

"I started in comedy, and I thought that's where I'd continue. And then I sort of went, 'Oh I'd like to try some straight, serious drama.' And then I couldn't quite get back. So this is me letting rip.

"As a youngster, that's what I thought my career would be, as I got into middle age. But there's not as many of those parts written now for women - those larger-than-life funny women. We've lost Victoria Wood."

Peake has co-written the script as well as starring in the show

The new show also requires Peake to sing. Has she been in a musical before? "Have I heck. I'm not a singer."

She is, it must be noted, in a band called The Eccocentric Research Council, although her vocal delivery with them is more like spoken word. "Sort of" musical again.

"What is nice, at the grand old age of 48, is going, OK, I'm going to do something where I sing, and there's ways around it, and I've learned so much."

Rap battle with Dennis Skinner

Lady Boothroyd isn't the first politician to get the musical treatment. Evita and Hamilton haven't done badly, but recent shows about British political figures have had mixed results.

Like with Betty!, an exclamation mark was deployed for Tony! (The Tony Blair Rock Opera), co-written by comedian Harry Hill. Blair is more divisive, and the show was less affectionate and less subtle. "The show struggles to shift out of a cartoon register," The Telegraph said.

Veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner was the subject of The Palace of Varieties, and setting his "colourful Commons battles" to a soundtrack of music hall and Broadway songs "makes surprising sense", The Guardian said.

Skinner makes an appearance in Betty! too. This time, the Beast of Bolsover and Madam Speaker perform a verbal joust in the form of a rap battle.

Baroness Boothroyd has been "very supportive", Peake says

Betty! also completes something of a trilogy for Peake, who has previously written plays about two other pioneering real-life women - champion cyclist Beryl Burton and Hull fishwife Lillian Bilocca. Like Lady Boothroyd, both are from Yorkshire.

"I feel slightly traitorous to my Lancashire roots," jokes Peake, from Bolton. "There's been a theme of writing things about inspirational women from working class backgrounds in the north."

Both Burton and Bilocca were dead by the time Peake came to pay homage. Lady Boothroyd, now 93, is very much with us. What does she think about her life being given this fantastical treatment?

Peake says she says has been "very supportive".

"Because you worry, don't you? You think, what would she think? But she seemed really pleased about it. We've assured her it's a celebration."

Betty! A Sort of Musical is at the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester until 14 January.