Review: 1536 at Ambassador’s Theatre

Three young women, friends who have grown up together in the same Essex village, endure a life where the only excitement is the sporadic, two or three days old news drifting up from London, detailing King Henry VIII's marital troubles with his Queen, Anne Boleyn. The play is an exploration of what women want, or in some instances, what they think they deserve. More specifically, how the little to which they are entitled, remains entirely at the behest and in the power of men to grant. In terms of morality, the age old double standards around sex have never been more poignantly or acutely observed.

It's summer, and the stage (as designed by Max Jones) is bedecked in clumps of dry long grass and teazles and dominated by the trunk of a dead tree which was long ago struck by lightning. Copulating up against it, as the lights go up, are Anna (Siena Kelly) and Richard (Oliver Johnstone). She has beauty, is sexually confident and flirtatious. He, we learn after several of these episodes, is equally enamoured but has no intention of making her his wife and has been betrothed courtesy of his landowner father, to the respectful and altogether more submissive Jane (Liv Hill) who will serve as good breeding stock. Completing the trinity of women is Mariella (Tanya Reynolds) who is learning the craft of midwifery having lost the chance to be married to her beloved William (George Kemp) due to her lack of any dowry.

As Richard's marriage to Jane draws ever closer, Anna's realisation that she is unlikely to find a match due to rumours that she has been fornicating with married or betrothed men, leads to fears of powerlessness and a genuine concern for her safety, particularly as news has begun circulating of women at nearby Colchester being burned by their husbands for adultery or similar offences while their neighbours watch on. Lyndsey Turner's direction, rightly focuses on the three women's broad spectrum of acceptance and adherence to social mores, and particularly as they occur in the shadow of The King's recent beheading of his once beloved Anne, which sets the national patriarchal tone for ensuring that women remain subjugated as chattels and living in fear.

The production demonstrates the strong and caring bonds which women can form, whilst never shying away from the catastrophic divisions which can erupt when a man is introduced into the mix. Each of the female protagonists is given opportunities to demonstrate sensitivity, yearning, fury and frustration at the powerlessness required of them by society and sometimes by each other. There are gentle moments of desperate heartbreak, interludes of bawdy hilarity and a naturalistic acting style redolent of anything you could witness in a modern day drama. But in every way, this Tudor tale is as far from a corseted costume drama as it would be possible to get. The language is dangerous, daring, expletive-laden, managing to feel raw and breathtakingly honest throughout.

1536 plays straight through (without an interval) and with a running time just shy of 2 hours. Putting my head on the block here, but frankly you'd be mad to miss it.

1536 tickets