King Charles and Queen Camilla toured the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in central London today, which has trained leading actors from Sir Anthony Hopkins to Imelda Staunton and Tom Hiddleston.
King Charles and Queen Camilla watch a play about family betrayal. (Image: Getty)
King Charles and Queen Camilla enjoyed a performance of a play about family betrayal on a visit to a world-famous drama school on Wednesday.
Charles and Camilla toured the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in central London, which has trained leading actors from Sir Anthony Hopkins to Imelda Staunton and Tom Hiddleston.
It marked the couple’s first major public event since Rishi Sunak called a snap General Election last week, as the Royal Family postponed any engagements “which may appear to divert attention or distract from the election campaign”.
During the visit to celebrate RADA’s 120th anniversary, the King and Queen watched students perform an extract of The House of Ife, performed by third-year acting students in the Gielgud theatre.
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Directed by Beru Tessema, the play is described on the RADA website as a “tense, simmering story” about one family “forced to confront the traumas they have long tried to bury” after the sudden death of their eldest son and brother, Ife.
It adds: “As the sun beats down on their North London flat, and the authoritarian head of the family arrives from Ethiopia for the funeral, tensions rise, cultures clash and past betrayals are unearthed.”
It comes as family tensions continue to plague the Firm, as earlier this month Prince Harry briefed that his father had been “too busy” to meet him while he was in the UK.
But this version of events was soon thrown into doubt when friends of the King claimed that the Duke neither requested to see his father nor invited him to attend a special Invictus Games service at St Paul’s.
They added that Harry also turned down an invitation to stay at a royal residence during his brief trip.
Their Majesties personally selected the production, having been given three options, and Charles appeared to enjoy the play.
Former RADA student and actor David Harewood, now president of the Academy, said the King “really seemed to enjoy” the play, adding: “I saw him giggle at one point.
King Charles and Queen Camilla personally chose the play. (Image: Getty)
“Forty percent of our student intake now are from black or mixed race backgrounds and that’s again wonderful to see that we’re embracing that and they chose that play.”
Mr Harewood added: “In the way that he is reframing the monarchy, we’re doing the very same here with RADA – taking what was a very established legacy and trying to project that into the future, giving our modern students a taste of a much more modern industry.”
Misheck Albert Freeman, a third-year student performing in the House of Ife, said the King told him “that he enjoyed it very much and thought that we did well”.
Charles and Camilla broke out into laughter at several points during the performance, especially when Mr Freeman started playing Amazing Grace on a keyboard that suddenly broke.
“Was that supposed to happen?” The King asked him afterwards, to which the 28-year-old responded: “No, but we went along with it!”
“It was fantastic, very amusing I must say,” Charles added.
Their Majesties also toured around the Scenic Art Studio. (Image: Getty)
The production is currently open to the public and will run until June 8 in the Gielgud Theatre in RADA.
As part of the visit, Their Majesties also toured around the Scenic Art Studio, where they met with technical theatre arts students and heard about the set design and build process.
Speaking about that part of the tour, Mr Harewood, who accompanied the King and Queen throughout with fellow actress Cynthia Erivo, said: ”He’s very into sustainability and most of the sets that we build here, we try and use at least 40-50 percent of the sets for other productions instead of throwing them away – we’re trying to make sustainability an underpinning factor of the Academy.”
A group of RADA students and graduates also got the opportunity to meet with the King and Queen in the Burnt Cafe at the Academy before they left.
Part of this cohort was actor Daniel Mays, who spoke with Camilla about a recent performance of his in Guys & Dolls that she had gone to watch in the West End in January with her grandchildren.
He said: “She came to see Guys & Dolls towards the end of my run with all of her grandkids. We were only told on the day that there was going to be a really important royal visit…she loved it and they said they had the most incredible night.”
Speaking to Mays in the cafe, Camilla told him that it had been “fantastic”, adding: “I liked the idea that it was very intimate.”
