Serving Elizabeth

by Marcia Johnson

Serving Elizabeth begins in Kenya in 1952, during the fateful royal visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. Mercy, a restaurant owner, is approached to cook for the royal couple. Though she could use the money, she is a staunch anti-monarchist. She vows to stick to her principles, but her daughter, Faith, keeps trying to convince her to take the job. In London in 2015, in the production offices of a series about Queen Elizabeth, a Kenyan-Canadian film student, Tia, serves as an intern on the project. It's a perfect fit for her as she has been a fan of princesses her whole life. But when she reads the Kenya episode, she starts to understand that fairy tales and real life are very different things. Serving Elizabeth is a funny, fresh, and topical play about colonialism, monarchy, and who is serving whom -- or what.

Genres: Plays

136 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2020

Reviews

[harveennn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad book at all in fact I thought it was really good but I did get a bit confused jumping back and forth between the two stories since it isn't my usual cup of tea but otherwise Mercy and Faith's story is purely beautiful and I love Johnson's confidence to write about The Crown. Amazing work with this book, loved it.

[Suhani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very interesting to see the "same" story from different perspectives. I loved it when towards the end, Mercy confronts Elizabeth about things that happened in the past instead of just ignoring/letting them go.