Daisy Goodwin shines a spotlight on the polarising figure of Angela Kelly, a once obscure dresser dubbed ‘AK47’ by palace staff, in her new play By Royal Appointment which tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign through her most iconic outfits
Goodwin set out to write her first play By Royal Appointment with a desire to explore how the Queen communicated with her subjects through the clothes that she chose to wear.
‘I loved the idea of writing something about the clothes that the Queen wore and the Queen backstage because there’s so much written about the Queen but no one has ever treated her wardrobe seriously. They’ve treated it as a fashion – there have been books about the Queen’s fashion, but no one has ever written about it as part of her panoply of powers for statecraft.
‘Everything the Queen wears is scrutinised for meaning and if you don’t take that into account, I think you are missing a very important point about the Queen and queens in general….
