Power, Politics, Propaganda.
I am so glad I got the chance to see Howard Brenton’s 2010 play, Anne Boleyn, first staged at the Globe Theatre. It’s absolutely outstanding. Brenton is a writer who is not afraid to be direct and challenging. His most famous play, The Romans in Britain (1980), became a cause celebre after Mary Whitehouse objected to a rape scene involving Roman soldiers and a Druid priest, the scandal giving rise to the pun “The Romans in the Britons”. We are all familiar with Henry VIII and his six wives from school history lessons (most of us can recite the mnemonic rhyme “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”) through Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, not to mention the 2017 musical SIX. Yet for my money, Howard Brenton’s play is by far the most entertaining, informative, and insightful account of the reformation of 1534. He makes the case for that date as being as significant historically as 1789 is in France or 1917 is in Russia. It’s a tremendous, dramatic achievement and the Richmond Shakespeare Society are to be applauded to the rafters for putting on a superb production. If there are any tickets left, I would urge you to see it. First class in every way.
Director David Gray, like a good football manager, has chosen his players well. The team is strong with strength in depth, as they say. Moreover, David has a clear vision of how the play should work, and he keeps the action sharp and focused. There are no moments where you feel this is just padding. Everything is there for a purpose. The play is very ingeniously framed by a flash-forward technique to the reign of James I, 1603-1625. This adds another layer of texture to the narrative and allows Nicola Doble to give a wonderfully comic version of King James I, camp, cynical, and shrewd; she is absolutely marvellous. This device allows us to understand why Anne Boleyn so fascinated James I. Discovering and wearing her coronation dress decades later, James clearly admires Anne, the “ whore who changed England”.
Who was she? Why had she been so traduced and slandered? Who betrayed her? These are the questions James wants answers to, and they give the play its narrative momentum. It becomes immediately apparent that Emily Holroyd is a superb actor. She commands the stage and our undivided attention. She has, as it were, become Anne Boleyn. The costumes, of course, help greatly to give this impression of verisimilitude, but it is Emily’s creative genius to embody these outfits to make a living, breathing Anne that is utterly compelling. What’s particularly winning about her performance is the way she plays different Annes for different situations. From the teasing coquette with Henry VIII (Saul Reid, impressive) to the ardent Protestant with William Tyndale shouting out the name “Martin Luther, Martin Luther” in the woods like some early incarnation of primal scream therapy.
Above all, she shows what a formidable intellect Anne possessed. Indeed, it is Anne who persuades Henry to break with the Roman Catholic Church and instead create England as a sovereign independent nation state. The first true Brexit was in 1534, not 2016. She is a superb politician who navigates the treacherous world of the Tudor court with consummate skill. This she achieves in her late twenties or early thirties; her exact date of birth could be 1501 or 1507. She was beheaded in the Tower of London on 19th May 1536, aged 28 or 35. But what a legacy she both created for England and gave birth to our greatest ever Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). To get inside the mind of Anne Boleyn, look no further than Emily Holroyd’s vivid, visceral and vital embodiment. Quite remarkable.
Review by John O’Brien
Anne Boleyn is witty, intelligent, and strong-willed, throwing her energies into marrying King Henry and dreams of being a new Protestant queen for a new Protestant England. Henry remains desperate for a son and heir that Anne does not produce. Her enemies gather and her fall is rapid and terrible.
But her legacy survives. An extraordinary daughter in Queen Elizabeth. And an English Bible.
Written by Howard Brenton
Directed by David Gray
ANNE BOLEYN
Mary Wallace Theatre
18 to 25 April 2026
