Title: The Anastasia File
Starring: Jenny Seagrove, Simon Shepherd, Ashley D Gayle, Rosie Thomson, Andrew P Stephen, Kate Stafford
Writer: Royce Ryton
Director: Roy Marsden
Produced by: Theatre Royal Windsor / Bill Kenwright Ltd
Date: 2026 UK Tour
Inspired by real events, The Anastasia File is a historical play based on the adult life of Anna Anderson Manahan who claimed to be the missing Russian princess Anastasia Romanov.
The play features Jenny Seagrove as Anna and Simon Shepherd as the inspector trying to uncover the truth. Ashley D Gayle and Rosie Thomson play a variety of roles including: medical staff, lawyers, and members of the European royal families. Finally understudies Andrew P Stephen and Kate Stafford appear as non-speaking background characters in performances where they are not stepping into another character’s shoes.
I’m always fascinated by plays that manage to perform a story with so few actors. The pairing of Seagrove/Shepherd brings the heart of The Anastasia File to life with the friendship that develops between Anna and the inspector. Meanwhile the pairing of Gayle/Thomson execute a well-timed dance of leaving the stage as one character and reappearing as another. I have to applaud them for making each of their many characters distinctive and identifiable.
The Anastasia File uses minimal set design to good effect. Grey walls that narrow towards the back of the stage gives the space the actors are in a claustrophobic feeling. This represents Anna’s sense of being trapped in a place that isn’t convinced of her identity. With only a desk and three chairs that are repositioned depending on the needs of the scene, the single space acts as everything the play requires – from a hospital to an office to a home setting. Audio and lightning cues are used to help indicate to the audience a change in location.
From a historical point of view, The Anastasia File is a very curious play.
According to the official theatre programme, the play was first introduced by the Windsor Repertory Company on 4th May 1953. (A quick internet search suggests the play may have first been performed in the 1970s but for now I will trust the theatre-issued programme). The play opens and closes with brief vignettes set in the 1980s where a now elderly Anna agrees to tell her story to the inspector’s son – meaning the bulk of the play is actually a flashback. The real Anna Manahan died in 1984 which fits with the play’s timeline. Whether this was just a good guess by writer Royce Ryton or a later addition to the play, I don’t know.
For more than sixty years Anna insisted she was the real Anastasia and the play makes it clear that she had a large number of supporters who believed her story. The bodies of the Romanov family were not formally recovered and identified until 1991. And it wasn’t until 1994 the DNA testing proved once and for all that Anna was not Anastasia – ten years after she passed away. Even then the mystery was not over as two of Romanov children were missing from the main grave and their remains were not discovered and identified until 2007 – which no doubt led to many conspiracy theories of their possible survival during those intervening years.
It is certainly impressive that Anna managed to keep her ruse going for nearly her entire life and that her story could never be disproved in her lifetime. Since the play was written before the truth came out, The Anastasia File is left ambiguous and up to the audience to decide Anna’s honesty.
If I could give The Anastasia File one little complaint it’s that I wish the beginning and ending had been updated to reflect what we know today rather than keeping the original script’s ambiguity. Instead of being set in the 1980s, the bookend scenes could have been brought forward to either 1994 or post-2007 with a couple of characters discussing the DNA results and wondering how Anna could have fooled people for so long. The rest of the play, which is set in the past, could then continue as Ryton intended.
The play is a fascinating insight into Anna Manahan. I’d heard of her claims before seeing The Anastasia File but only in the most general sense. It was interesting seeing the details of her life and what she went through to try and convince people. The performances from the whole cast were excellent and I would certainly recommend the play to anyone who was curious about the events depicted.
Related Posts:
If you enjoy this review you may also like these reviews:
