The play’s title aside, only one person actually gets pummeled with a purse in “Handbagged.”

But Moira Buffini’s funny and convention-flouting piece, now getting a crisply acted San Diego premiere at Moxie Theatre, is bound to deliver a little blindside thwack to unsuspecting playgoers’ sensibilities.

That title, as director Kim Strassburger explains in a program note, actually originated with one of the play’s two key subjects: Margaret Thatcher, the late British prime minister whose ruthless streak earned “handbagged” a place in the Oxford English Dictionary.

(As Thatcher once told CNN: “Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law. That is why I carry a big handbag.”)

“Handbagged” revolves around the weekly tête-à-têtes the monarch and the politician convened during Thatcher’s time in office from 1979 to 1990 — a tenure that made her Britain’s longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century.

But the playwright is not content to tell that story straight: Instead, when the queen (Sandy Campbell) and Thatcher (Linda Libby) take the stage, they immediately start poking fun at theatrical artifice.

As Elizabeth puts it: “Whatever we say must stay within these three walls.” (And the fourth one, apparently, be damned.)