Curtain up on serious, sharp and enjoyable Handbagged at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre

The Olivier Award-winning full-length play by Moira Buffini was first staged in 2013. It imagines the weekly ‘briefings’ between the late Queen Elizabeth II and her eighth Prime Minister, the late Margaret Thatcher.

The Queen was arguably the most dedicated and dutiful monarch who ever served her country – and Commonwealth – and Thatcher was one of its most divisive leaders.

By different factions, both were revered and reviled.

They met once a week for 11 years. One believed there is no such thing as society – it was every man and woman for themselves. The other committed her life to serving it.

Thatcher changed lives – whether it was for good depends on your political point of view. The other did ‘good’.

Handbagged takes audiences from Thatcher’s 1979 election victory to 1990 – stabbed in the back by her Cabinet members and driven tearfully away after standing down as Tory leader – and asks if the Queen and the Iron Lady ever found common ground?

Buffini’s piece is serious, serious-minded, taking a long, hard look at the relationship between two of the most powerful women in the world, their ambitions, achievements, their differences and, yes, their similarities.

It simmers with resentments and jealousies, upstagings and putdowns. It is funny in a barbed, sharp way.

Whether Handbagged makes you jeer or cheer depends on your perspective. Miners and their families’ response will be different to that of city millionaires, Hooray Henries, Sloane Rangers and Yuppies.

Poll Tax protests, clashes between police and colliers, the Falklands War and the end of white rule in South Africa are discussed and dissected.

Whoever’s side you were on, the Brighton bombing during the Tory Party conference in 1984 is one of the play’s most sobering and scary moments. The attack by the IRA – meant to kill Thatcher and her Cabinet – killed five people and injured 31.

Handbagged is a series of political dramas inside a bigger drama – the showdowns between two women, wives and mothers, both with wayward sons and difficult daughters.

Not to mention rigid hairdos, stiff upper lips, clipped vowels and a handbag slung in the crook of their arm: the Royale for the Queen, a Bellini for Thatcher.

Pandora Clifford plays the younger Thatcher and Liz Garland is the young Queen. Alexandra Mathie is the older PM and Meriel Scholfield, the ageing monarch. The poignancy and comedy of the piece lie in the observation of the older women on their younger selves.

Simon Darwen and Deven Modha have fun playing every other character – from the devoted Dennis Thatcher to the vain Nancy Reagan and from firebrand Neil Kinnock to egoist Michael Heseltine.

It is stealthy directed by Hannah Tyrrell. The two women switch between the hunter and the hunted as they stalk each round a circular stage.

Handbagged is for many in the audience a look back at ‘the worst of times, the best of times’, a slice of history that shaped the world we live in, where racism, national identity, class clashes and poverty still top the political agenda.

It runs at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Saturday August 29.

Tickets available on 01723 370541 and online at www.sjt.uk.com