The Queue: A Reflection

This post is from a written statement about my Royal Correspondent project, initially called The Queue (2023). At the end of this I'll give my thoughts on the project after its initial performance on 2nd February 2023 in BOC, Chichester University.

The Queue: A Written Statement

My research set out to answer the question, “How does the British Monarchy maintain its power?”. This led me to researching the public’s fascination with royal bodies through Hilary Mantel’s article, Royal Bodies (2013) and the two (biopolitical) bodies of the king, discussed in an article by Catherine Malabou called The King’s Two (Biopolitical) Bodies (2014). Hilary Mantel writes ‘Royal persons are both gods and beasts. They are persons but they are supra-personal, carriers of a bloodline: at the most basic, they are breeding stock, collections of organs’ (Mantel, 2013; no page number given). This article does answer one part of the question, that the monarchy maintains its power through propagating heteronormative ideas of family through figures like Kate Middleton as the perfect mother. However, I wanted to examine how the institution itself maintains its power rather than how individual figures maintain the monarchy’s power, which led me to Catherine Malabou’s article.

Catherine Malabou’s suggestion that the two bodies of the king are made similarly to that of biopolitics. With the natural body being made up of the material, the bodies of heirs and family members and the divine body being made up of the non-material, the bodies that are anointed by God to rule Britain and The Commonwealth. Malabou uses Foucault to suggest that biopolitics has a double role, one of inaugurating a new form of political authority and another of subjugation of bodies and control of populations. The other role being the concealing of operations, of normalization itself behind the old figure of the law. This got me thinking that the monarchy needs both the divine and natural bodies to maintain its power. This then prompted me to research any events that showcase these two bodies in action. I was drawn to “The Queue” for when The Queen was lying in state as an event where the two bodies worked together, through the public paying their respects to a woman who died (the natural body) and the monarch (the divine body). This then provoked more questions of “how did this image of The Queen came about?” and “was it made by the institution of monarchy itself or is there another institution that helped make and maintain this image?”

To answer this question, I looked at Laura Clancy’s book Running the Family Firm: How the Monarchy Manages Its Image and Our Money (2021). I examined Chapters 1 and 2 which analyses the monarchy’s relationship with capitalism and their relationship with the media. In Chapter 1, the monarchy’s relationship to capitalism is intertwined in its structure being similar to a corporation, its wealth coming from landownership in Britain and overseas, extraction and exploitation of resources, and hiding its wealth through exempting senior royals from freedom of information requests and omitting profits from calculations. There is also this ever-revolving door within the royal staff, which includes institutions like the BBC, Barkley’s Bank, etc. Which leads onto chapter 2 which suggests this relationship with the BBC maintains the royal family’s media image.

In Chapter 2, Clancy suggests that the monarchy’s relationship with media is maintained through a strict rota, allowing certain organizations to interview and photograph the royal family. This modern relationship with the media, started back in 1953 with The Queen’s coronation. There was discussion around whether television cameras during the coronation would be allowed for fear it would ruin the mystique and religious significance of the ceremony, but The Daily Express and The BBC lobbied to have them in, suggesting that it would give the monarchy a new legitimacy. From this event there was then a feeling of proximity to the royal family that was just as good as being physically near them. Clancy then goes on to suggest that the media constructs a public and maintains it through active engagement. As Clancy writes ‘Again, mediations are positioned as active: (re)producing meaning and shaping experiences. The “centre” of society is constructed, both by media and in the audiences (re)actions.’ (Clancy, 2021; 72). It’s these moments of “closeness” that I want to explore through the use of a broadcast via social media because it brings the royals into closer proximity with their subjects and put them on equal footing with the public rather than this “close but not too close” feeling from televised events.

Through this research, I built to the conclusion to recreate the queue as an event, that will happen within a public space as well as being a media event. To set up the exercise, I took inspiration from artworks like Stan’s Café’s, The commentators (2009) and Back to Back Theatre’s, Small Metal Objects (2005). I wanted to engage with the game that was set up within The Commentators, that being commentary of the everyday but put it through figures like a royal correspondent. This comes from Clancy suggesting that when the media covers royal events, they are the legitimate arbiters and interpreters of such events. This sense of legitimacy is performed through the commentary and vox-pop interviews written out as pre-planned statements, questions, and responses. This written text is meant to reflect the how choreographed royal media engagements are, especially the death of the queen which is rehearsed year on year. It also provides an oscillation between the present speaker and recreating “past” moments of the text as suggested by Cathy Turner who uses Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Nights as an example. Where the speakers narrate their own story as the characters of those stories.

This engagement is furthered through the multiple layers of performance, with one layer being the event of the queue, another layer being the live stream, and a final layer being passers-by. Small Metal Objects achieves this in a similar way through having a performance within a public space like a shopping centre. Where there is an audience in a raised seating bank listening to a performance between two people and having the shopping centre and the public within it as a backdrop. So, you have the performance of the piece, the performance of audience and the everyday performance of the public. By doing this layered performance I’m commenting on the layered nature of royal events, with a public watching the events in person, the audience watching on the TV and the event itself creating as Clancy describes, as a mediated centre and constructing a public to manufacture consent for royal rule.

Overall, this piece seeks to examine the monarchy’s ways of maintaining power and how the media does this through choreographed media events in which a public is constructed, and consent is given to royal rule through a perceived proximity, that is close but not too close.

My Thoughts Post-Queue

Since this initial performance experiment, I have thought on how to develop this project further by focusing on the "mediated centre" that is created as Clancy suggests by both the media and in the audiences (re)actions. I did this through moving away from recreating an event, instead forcing the broadcast style of royal non-events into "events" such as festivals, performance showcases, etc. This is achieved by making the "vox-pop" segments of the broadcasting about the event that is happening around the performance, sprinkled in with discussions of monarchy as a symbol for the imagined identity of Britishness. This creates a temporary community within the performance by giving these "local events" the same importance as the death and rebirth of the monarch as a re-establishment of national identity.

Another development of this piece was to make it a walkabout piece to make it more accessible to audiences. While the piece was already accessible due to it being available to watch live on social media, it being a stationary piece meant that not many people came to see or participate in it because they had to fit it around seeing other performances. By developing this piece into a walkabout piece it allows for audiences to engage with the piece by having it come to them, as well as explore site through the live stream. This also makes it really accessible to audiences with physical disabilities, as the venue for the piece is the site of the festival.

Another development of this piece was in the performance of the "vox-pop" game. In the initial experiment the "vox-pops" were conducted as a simple interview with the camera being far away with a wide shot of the queue. For subsequent performances I played with my proxemics to the participant. Only leaning in when I ask a question and moving away with my arm outstretched and holding the microphone when they answer. This device represents how the monarchy are close with their subjects, but not too close during the televised non-events. Which is presented through the Royal Correspondent being physically close but not too close.

However there was some effective and smart decisions made during the making and performance of The Queue. For example, the proxemics of the camera in relation to the event. As mentioned earlier, it was a wide shot which captured the scale of the event even when it wasn't "busy". But there were moments when those proxemics changed to play on that feeling of being close but not too close to the event.

Another smart decision was having those layers of performance within the piece. This gave the piece a level of engagement similar to Back to Back Theatre's, Small Metal Objects with the performance of the audience both in person and on the live stream, the performance of the piece, and the performance of the general public. This allowed for the game of the commentary of the everyday to be played, which was a very effective device for filling in airtime in what would be called a "dead space".

Overall, the initial performance experiment of The Queue was effective in recreating the queue and the broadcasting surrounding it as an event in a public space. The developments on the format and performance, and continuing with the smart and effective decisions I made during the process helped to further the piece for when it was performed at my degree-show festival at university. Which will be the topic of discussion in my next blog post.

Bibliography for The Queue: A Written Statement

Back to Back Theatre (2005) Small Metal Objects

Clancy, L. (2021) Running The Family Firm: How The Monarchy Manages Its Image and Our Money. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Malabou, C. (2014) ‘The Kings Two (Biopolitical) Bodies’, Representations, 127(1), pp. 98–106.

Mantel, H. (2013) Hilary Mantel · Royal Bodies · LRB 21 February 2013, London Review of Books. Available at: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

Stan’s Café (2009) The Commentators

Turner, C. (2009) ‘Getting The “Now” Into Written Text (and Vice Versa): Developing Dramaturgies of Process’, A Journal of The Performing Arts, 14(1).