DAISY GOODWIN: Angela Kelly came to see my play about her and her beloved Queen three times. She may not be the most likeable character… but this is what I think it tells you about her REAL relationship with the royals

Rumours that the late Queen Elizabeth II’s dresser, confidante and right-hand woman, Angela Kelly, may be making a documentary about her three decades at Windsor have caused ripples of excitement among royal watchers.

And rightly so. The story of her rise from Merseyside crane driver’s daughter to one of the most influential yet divisive figures in Buckingham Palace would make compelling viewing.

However I’m not holding my breath. In fact I’d be very surprised if such a documentary gets made. Not only will Kelly have signed a confidentiality agreement with the Palace, but her unquestionable devotion to her former employer makes it unlikely she would ever be indiscreet about the Queen.

When I wrote my play By Royal Appointment – about the relationship between Elizabeth and her dresser – I decided not to approach Kelly but to use my instincts as a historian to write a fictionalised account

The play begins when the dresser returns from Elizabeth II’s funeral to find the lock of the safe containing the royal jewels has been changed and she can no longer access it. In that moment she realises that under the new reign, she is very much surplus to requirements. This woman, who for the last 30 years has been the Queen’s constant companion, ‘gatekeeper’ and, at the end, carer, has gone in a heartbeat from being indispensable to being an embarrassment.

I wrote that scene in 2020, before the death of Her Majesty. And yet I can’t say I was surprised when it turned out to be close to the truth. For when Elizabeth did die, it quickly became apparent that Angela Kelly was no longer welcome at Windsor and no longer had a job.

In general, when one monarch dies, their favourites are not treated kindly by their successors.

Queen Victoria, about whom I wrote an ITV drama, had hardly drawn her last breath when her final ‘crush’ – her Urdu teacher, Abdul Karim, known as The Munshi – was turfed out of the house he lived in with his family on the Osborne estate on the Isle of Wight, and packed off back to India. Angela Kelly, now 68 and by her own admission known as AK47 by the royal Household, was not likely to fare any better.

Towards the end of my play, the Queen tells the dresser that she has made provision for her in her will, and then tries to warn her that things will change dramatically after her death.

The Queen reminds her as tactfully as possible that ‘your appointment is for my lifetime, not yours’. In other words that she should prepare herself for unemployment.

As the Queen’s dresser for many years, Kelly had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the royal wardrobe and jewellery collection. In some institutions, such historical knowledge would be valued, and an archival position might be found. But in Kelly’s case no such offer was forthcoming. Nor was she permitted to remain in the grace and favour house on the Windsor estate that the Queen had given her for her lifetime.

The King instead bought her a bungalow in Derbyshire and one can only assume that distance was a factor in its location.

I started By Royal Appointment in 2019 when a producer approached me about writing something on the late Queen’s milliner Freddie Fox, a gay Australian who was an outsider like Kelly.

Famously, the Queen was not interested in fashion, and yet everything she wore in public was of huge significance.

The hideous pale blue check coat she wore to meet the Duchess of Windsor in 1972, for example, was a signal to the famously elegant Duchess that a reigning monarch has no need to appear chic.

At the beginning of her royal service in 1994, Kelly worked with a number of designers but as the reign continued, she began to take over more and more of the decision-making process.

There is a telling passage in one of the two books she published while the Queen was alive (an honour that had never been granted to a royal staff member before) in which she makes the rounds of the British designers and finds them snobby and standoffish. Only the couturier Stewart Parvin welcomes her in; he is the one who gets the business.

The one detail I did use from Kelly’s book was her description of ‘wearing in’ the Queen’s shoes so that they wouldn’t produce royal blisters. Kelly claims they had the same shoe size but in my play the dresser is limping as she ‘wears in’ a pair of evening shoes.

I never made any attempt to meet Kelly while I was writing the play. Apart from the details I had gleaned from her books, I was happier using my imagination.

I wasn’t going to be speaking to the Queen so it made sense to anchor my characters in a historical framework of 12 outfits beginning with the investiture of the Prince of Wales and ending with the clothes the Queen wore for her last audience with Prime Minister Liz Truss.

But when the play was announced Angela Kelly contacted my producer through an intermediary. A meeting was arranged in Soho but I got a text saying it was off. I was disappointed but not surprised. If someone had seen us together, it would have invited speculation that she had collaborated with me and that would have had legal consequences for her given she would have signed a legally binding non-disclosure agreement.

When the play started its run, I got word however that Kelly had bought tickets. I awaited her verdict with some nervousness.

What would she think of the way that I had written about the Queen at some of the most momentous times of her life?

To my relief Kelly liked the play – so much that she came to see it three times. I suspect the reason she liked it is that, while the dresser is not an altogether likeable character, the play makes it clear how central she was to the Queen’s life, how dedicated she was to serving her, and how shabbily she was treated after her death.

I don’t know whether Kelly receives any kind of royal pension, but from what I can glean she isn’t massively wealthy. Maybe she isn’t the easiest person in the world to deal with but I wonder if perhaps that was what the Queen valued about her.

A woman who didn’t like to deal with unpleasant situations needs someone to protect her, and for the last 20 years or so of her life, that is what Angela Kelly did.

Whether she will continue to be protective – or whether rumours of the documentary turn out to be true – remains to be seen.

By Royal Appointment starring Jane Asher and Laura Main begins a nationwide tour next week. For venues and tickets go to playsontour.co.uk