The first time Charles II meets Nell Gwyn is during a performance at the Drury Lane theatre where Nell catches his eye with a bawdry and enjoyable song and dance number. Getting to know her after her shows, the King becomes quite Nell, preferring her honesty and irreverent manner to the stiffer and 'proper' Duchess of Portsmouth. Despite their fun relationship, Nell knows that the polite social circle will never accept a music hall player as one of their own.
Having greatly enjoyed Henry VIII, I decided to dip my toes back into the waters of historical dramas with a rather irreverent sense of humour there are quite a few of them from the period. I do not know enough about the true history behind this story to know if it is true or not but the sheer comic tone of it and the way a working class girl gets on with the King would suggest that at least it takes liberties with the truth. This rather overblown humour does tend to take away from the actual story and characters and makes it more of a general story rather than one with specific interest.
Happily this doesn't infect the whole film and the conclusion does avoid the 'happy' ending that would be demanded if test audiences got their hands on it today.
The cast are good but they are also responsible for producing the irreverent tone. The main failing in this regard is in Anna Neagle herself; she plays it wide and bawdry but has nothing else in her arsenal to give, she tries to shed a tear in close up at the end but even that is unconvincing. She is not terrible but it is hard to see anything in her character other than loud irreverence. Hardwicke is a bit better but he still struggles to break through the noise and make his king a person. The support cast largely follow suit and are loud and bawdry or as the script requires again there is nothing actually wrong with this per se but it does make the film a rather one note affair, albeit an enjoyable note in its own way.
Overall this is a lively, bawdry film that shuns detail and character depth in favour of noise, good-humour and entertainment. On one hand I had a real problem with this because I felt I was being served a rather short shift by it and wanted to know more about the people and the facts. However on the other hand I did get into the humour of it and, as a sort of music hall history, I suppose it has enough crowd-pleasing energy to make for an entertaining hour or so.
