Introduction to 1536
"I’ll be a good woman." "How can you change the definition again and again?" What happens if the most powerful woman in the country is suddenly reminded that she is still only a woman? That is the question in the beating heart of a new piece in the Almeida Theater.
The Story Behind 1536
Set in the last few months of Anne Boleyn’s life, the play skillfully dodges the traditional Tudor narrative. Instead, we are rooted in a sun-drenched Essex field, where three young women meet to share dreams, vent about work, and plan their future. This timeless terrain of girlhood becomes a battlefield when news from London arrives: Henry VIII has charged the queen with treason in the Tower of London. The once-familiar dynamics of these young friends begin to change and fray. It turns out that patriarchy doesn’t just operate from thrones and palaces – it also sneaks into hedges and hay bales.
A Love Letter to Female Friendship
Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2024, the play is a love letter to female friendship and a sharp dissection of how systemic misogyny can infiltrate even the most intimate bonds. While the piece is set almost 500 years ago, its emotional and thematic underpinnings urgently feel contemporary, especially after modern touchstones like Netflix’s "Youth." Similar to this production, the slow poison of patriarchal power is probed.
The Script and Performances
The script is slim but tight, rich in colloquialisms, and laced with wit. It crackles with the coarse but charming dialogue you’d expect from women’s banter in a busy pub. If the girls ask why Anne Boleyn would have an affair with her lute player, they all agree, "Well, they’re with their hands" – until it’s brutally interrupted by historical and cultural reality. Think "Sex and the City" if it were set in a 16th-century mud pit in eastern England.
The Phenomenal Trio of Leads
The phenomenal trio of leads is central to the play’s success. Siena Kelly as a cheeky, flirting, but heartbreaking Anna is in perfect tandem with the script; it feels like it was written for them. And their performance insists with vulnerability and anger. Liv Hill delivers another knockout as Jane, the funny, naive "good girl" whose search for security teaches her darker ways. Tanya Reynolds is also noteworthy as Mariella, with a quiet attitude and growing unrest. The chemistry between the three is electrically charged and at times painfully brittle.
The Power of Female Friendship
Their friendship is warm, messy, and lively, with the kind of coded shorthand that can only come from being close. But as events in London escalate, their dynamic splinters under the weight of paranoia, judgment, and a creeping feeling of doom. They begin to reflect the structures that oppress them, each absorbing and reproducing the poisonous fallout of a world built by and for men.
Production and Direction
The production is a feast of mood and meaning. The set, which captures the endless change of English fields, is detailed and earthy. A beautiful, tactile space that plays as playful and safe until it’s not. A huge cloud landscape of sunsets and sunrises looms behind the action, shifting in color and sound as the narrative darkens, reflecting the rising tensions on stage. Director Lyndsey Turner orchestrates everything with characteristic finesse, guiding us from rolling laughter to horror with a hardly perceptible shift in gear.
Conclusion
But for all its power, the play is not perfect. There are some missed opportunities for grand expression. The bubbling undercurrent of female anger, which was so pleasantly teased, is diverted into a stylized sequence of flashing lights, contemporary music, and neon green. It’s a decision that jars with the carefully constructed, naturalistic world and undermines what could have been an emotional showstopper. Elements of the plot also sound somewhat predictable. However, this reads more as a conscious choice than laziness – one that now emphasizes the inevitable tragedies of then and now.
Despite this, the play pains the past into the present with unshakable clarity and bitter humor. It speaks to how misogyny seeps from kings and courts to village boys and lovers. The result is a piece that feels important and gripping, with laugh-out-loud lines, pitch-perfect performances, and cool observations. It’s not just a period piece; it’s a call to arms disguised as a comedy. The play deals with the impossibility of femininity; the reason they loved you will be the same reason they hate you now – a feeling as true today as in 1536.
In the world of the play, there are no winners, not even queens. But there is laughter and just enough wild hope to wish them against all odds to make it out alive. The play runs at the Almeida Theater in London until June 7th.
