History doesn’t always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes it slips in quietly, through a half-open window, carrying something far more dangerous.
This May, the Liverpool Everyman Theatre stages The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, a darkly comic, high-tension drama based on the incendiary short story by Hilary Mantel. Adapted by Alexandra Wood and directed by John Young, this world premiere doesn’t just revisit the past—it pokes it with a stick and asks what might have happened if things had gone very differently.
Set in the charged atmosphere of 1983, the premise is deceptively simple: Margaret Thatcher is due to leave hospital following routine surgery. Outside, the world carries on. Inside, in one anonymous room, something far more volatile is unfolding.
Two people. One rifle. A decision that could redraw history.
What follows is less a political drama in the traditional sense and more a psychological standoff—tense, intimate, and laced with Mantel’s signature dark humour. This isn’t about spectacle. It’s about pressure. Ideology, class, resentment—all simmering in a confined space where talk is cheap, but action carries weight.
And let’s not kid ourselves—the subject matter still bites. Thatcher remains one of the most divisive figures in modern British history, and setting a story like this in Liverpool adds an extra charge. This is a city with a long memory, and the play knows it.
Marketed as “created for Liverpool and our politically volatile times,” the production feels less like a period piece and more like a mirror held up at an uncomfortable angle. The question it poses isn’t just what if?—it’s why does that question still feel relevant?
This is theatre that leans into discomfort, sharpens it, and dares you to sit with it.
Tickets are available via the Everyman and Playhouse box offices. If you’re after something safe and nostalgic, look elsewhere. If you want theatre that has the nerve to unsettle, this might be one to catch before the conversation moves on without you.
There’s a particular kind of alchemy required to approach the catalogue of Bob Dylan without either genuflecting into museum-piece reverence or collapsing
As someone who grew up seeing Damon Albarn bossing Britpop with the Fred Perry-clad, ever-pogoing Blur, it’s strange to think that he’s
The entire cast and musicians delivered a first class performance. With a myriad of emotions, Tointon delivered a sterling performance as the
The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
