Theatre Royal Windsor – until 3 October 2026
Reviewed by Andrew and Kate Lawrence
5*****
“And who doesn’t like a bit of history wrapped up in mystery?”
Even before we entered the theatre tonight, we knew that there was a lot of history behind ‘The Anastasia File’ play. It was originally performed at the same theatre in the 1950s, and more recently in May 2025. That particular production has been brought back to Windsor for four more nights this week with the same excellent cast, written by Royce Ryton and directed by Roy Marsden.
Fitting indeed, that the subject of the play concerns another part of history surrounded by mystery and subterfuge. The story of a woman, rescued from a Berlin canal and sent to an asylum, who might perhaps turn out to be Princess Anastasia, the last remaining survivor of the Russian Romanov family, massacred by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
On the other hand, she might turn out to be a fraud, as the story explains, there were so many claiming to be the woman who, as legend has it, escaped the massacre in Ekaterinburg. But this woman never actually claims to be her, in fact it is only everyone else concluding that she must be the princess, given her faultless performance and characterisation of someone who could only be a Russian Tsar’s daughter.
Jenny Seagrove gives such a convincing performance, playing the part of Anastasia that she gives the audience the impression she must be the princess but is it all just an act?
Indeed the entire cast gave such a masterclass performance, switching between scenes so slickly and efficiently, it was like reading a gripping book that you could just not put down. Simon Shepherd plays the parts of both Inspectors, father and son. Rosie Thompson has many roles including multiple nurses, and many Russian and American aunts. Ashley D. Gayle plays the part of multiple doctors and lawyers and the understudies Andrew P Stephen and Kate Stafford provide many other background roles throughout the performance. You would be forgiven for thinking this cast has been doing this for years, perhaps they have.
The play reenacts the story perfectly, it re-tells the historical facts accurately but also delivers it in a way conveying exactly how this woman must have been received at the time. And who doesn’t like a bit of history wrapped up in mystery?
I’m not going to tell you how it ends, you’ll have to go see it and find out for yourself, just go see it before it finishes on Saturday 3rd October 2026.