REVIEW: The Anastasia File at Newcastle Theatre Royal

The Anastasia File 

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Until Saturday 19 September 2026

For anyone with a passing interest in twentieth-century mystery, the story of Anna Anderson, or Mrs Anna Manahan, as she became, remains one of history's great "what ifs". Did she die with the rest of the Romanovs in that Ekaterinburg cellar in 1918, or did she somehow survive to be fished, half-drowned, from a Berlin canal two years later, carrying fragments of memory that only a Grand Duchess could possess? Royce Ryton's *The Anastasia File* sets out the case for both sides and, admirably, refuses to hand the audience a verdict, a decision that feels true to the real mystery, even if it makes for a slightly frustrating night in the stalls.

The programme notes date the play to 1953, though a little digging suggests it actually belongs closer to the late 1970s, an origin that, frankly, makes more sense of what unfolds on stage. This is a play built from an older dramatic toolkit: a two-hander conversation between the Inspector and Mrs Manahan, followed by a scene in which the Inspector reconvenes with a colleague to mull over what's just been said and, in the process, deliver another slab of exposition to the audience. Rinse and repeat. It's a structure that was probably already looking a touch old-fashioned decades ago, and in 2026 it does show its age. There's a ponderousness to some of the exposition-heavy stretches, particularly in the first half, where the piece seems more interested in laying out the historical record than in building dramatic momentum.

That said, there is a genuinely interesting device at its heart: Simon Shepherd plays both the original Inspector and, in a later section that pushes the action on into the 1980s, his son - a neat way of extending the timeline and letting the play gesture towards the ongoing, decades-spanning nature of the real case. It's a shame, then, that the production doesn't push this modernising instinct further. The DNA evidence that eventually resolved the Anderson/Manahan question in the real world, and which would have given the play's closing arguments a sharper, more contemporary edge, goes unmentioned, leaving the drama to close on ambiguity that the history books have since settled - though I'm not sure how advanced dna was back at the time the play was written. Whether that's a deliberate choice to preserve the mystery for dramatic purposes, or simply a text that hasn't quite caught up with the facts, is hard to say. It does the play no harm to be scrupulously fair to the story of Mrs Manahan's uncertain origins, but it will nag at anyone in the audience who knows how the tale ends.

None of this is a criticism of the performances, which are the real reason to see this production. Jenny Seagrove is superb as Mrs Manahan, navigating a role that demands she be by turns fragile, imperious, evasive and utterly convinced of her own identity, often within the same scene, without ever tipping into caricature. It's a performance built on stillness and control as much as outburst, and it's easy to see why she's returned to the part. Simon Shepherd is an equally assured scene partner, giving the Inspector (and later his son) a dogged, decent scepticism that never curdles into cruelty; the two of them carry enormous amounts of dialogue between them, and do so with a naturalism that papers over some of the script's creakier joins. Ashley D. Gayle and Rosie Thomson bring welcome variety in a string of smaller roles, providing the shifts in tone and pace that the two leads' extended exchanges occasionally need.

Roy Marsden's direction is unfussy, trusting the material and the cast rather than reaching for visual flourish, which suits a play that is, at heart, a battle of words and wills rather than of spectacle. The design, likewise, keeps things simple, letting the performances do the heavy lifting.

*The Anastasia File* is an intriguing evening, and one that respects its audience enough to let them draw their own conclusions about a mystery that captivated the world for the best part of a century. But it's also, at times, a wordy and demanding one - a play more comfortable telling than showing, that leans hard on its two leads to keep an old-fashioned structure feeling alive. Seagrove and Shepherd are more than equal to the task, and their performances alone make this worth seeking out. Just don't expect the play itself to have moved on quite as far as the story it's telling.

Review: Stephen Oliver

Tickets:

https://www.theatreroyal.co.uk/whats-on/the-anastasia-file/