During the pandemic, I found myself watching the 1950s-60s American panel show What’s My Line? (all 757 episodes) most days on YouTube. One of the regular panellists was journalist and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.
In Speculations, a new play by Torben Betts, directed by Trevor Nunn, Dorothy (Janie Dee) is the main focus. She is writing books about the deaths of Marilyn Monroe and Lee Harvey Oswald, investigating how the official stories don’t always make sense.
When Flo (Gloria Obianyo) arrives to babysit Dorothy’s young son, Kerry, she brings her idealistic views about trust in government and authority – only to find them challenged by investigations and conspiracy theories.
Lee Newby‘s set has revolves that cleverly reveals other locations: Monroe’s (Natalie Dunne) bedroom; a bar in which Oswald (Joseph Potter) gets recruited by the mob to assassinate JFK.
Dunne plays ‘Norma Jeane’ (Monroe’s birth name) with a mix of toughness and hysteria, neither particularly suggesting the most famous woman in the world. Perhaps we have had too many plays referencing her death but these scenes didn’t feel that convincing.
Robert F Kennedy (played by Jolyon Coy) should be an interesting, complex character – a married Catholic in high office worried about being exposed as less than the almost-saint his followers believe in. Sadly he is written and directed as strictly one-note, but wisely Coy does not attempt the real accent.
Better are Oswald’s bar chats with Carlos Marcello (Ferdy Roberts), a name long associated with the JFK Dallas killing. Marcello is jovial but with a core of steel. He could reach over and break Oswald’s neck in a moment. Potter plays the patsy convincingly, as the script suggests his feelings about Cuba and Castro are just as misplaced as Flo’s about RFK being the saviour of Black America.
Back at the Kilgallen residence, a rising sense of danger is signposted through mysterious phone calls and a missile through the window. It has been suggested that Dorothy was murdered due to her involvement in these cases, specifically her interviews with Jack Ruby – who killed Oswald, you may recall, live on TV.
Speculations is, of course, fiction and conjecture. All we know for certain is that an actress, a President and his named assassin, and a reporter died. In the cases of Monroe and Dorothy, the cause was deemed to be suicide, but aspects around how their bodies were found have raised doubt.
Any evidence Dorothy collected disappeared with her. Flo is a completely imagined (and underwritten) character, purely there for us to hear the exposition and exploration around the Kennedy connection to both Marilyn and Oswald. Her civil rights interest and lived perspective would have made a compelling angle for the play.
Dee offers an interesting take on Dorothy Kilgallen. Resolute, almost arrogant in her belief she is right – but frightened for her life. There is no physical or vocal resemblance, but the sketch of a reporter committed to finding the truth is persuasive.
Speculations doesn’t quite live up to its promise and stops short of connecting the dots between these cases. It presents both JFK and RFK as weak men at the heart but simplifies their legacy.
I’m giving this 3 stars.
Speculations continues at Marylebone Theatre until 17 Jan 2027.
Photo credit: Helen Maybanks