Exit the Actress is cute and a bit quirky, but ultimately falls short of my hopes. The book tells the story of Eleanor Gwyn, called Ellen or Nell, who rises from selling oysters in the streets of London as a child, first to the ranks of the theatre, then to the royal court as a mistress to the famously libidinous King Charles II. Along the way, she gets entangled with the other famous names of the day, a host of other playwrights, poets, actors, actresses, and courtiers. The period of the Restoration is utterly fascinating for how riotous and contradictory it was, and Parmar does a satisfactory job of bringing that atmosphere across.

Parmar tells the story chiefly through Gwyn’s imagined diary, but also through playbills, gossip columns, letters between the king and his family, recipes, and other paper detritus — all of it fictional or fictionalized. On the whole, it seems a rather sanitized version of Nell Gwyn’s story. The world certainly glitters — perhaps a bit too much. Parmar elevates Gwyn from guttersnipe origins to something rather more genteel — her mother is only an occasional bawd, her sister the better kind of prostitute. We also see none of “pretty, witty Nell” — this is not the story of an impishly charming redhead whose quick wit, bold manner, and cheerful disposition win the hearts of London and King Charles II. Instead, this is the story of a tongue-tied, hesitant mouse, who has significant trouble asserting herself and who lands favours and attention based primarily off of the machinations of scheming courtiers and well-meaning friends alike. There’s no fire in this Ellen, no spark of mischief, no brilliance, and precious little passion. It feels a bit as though Parmar didn’t want her heroine to occasionally do nasty things, and so she hedges around them, excuses them, dismisses them as rumor, or leaves them out entirely. Her Ellen is just a little too impossibly perfect. Everyone loves her, but Parmar never offers compelling evidence as to why. She fails to bring across the irresistible charisma that the historical Nell Gwyn reportedly had.

Full review at the Incurable Bluestocking.