Theatre review: 1536

Anne Boleyn looms large over Ava Pickett's 1536, although she never actually makes an appearance*: Instead we're in a field in Essex with three regular young women, who we catch up with over the course of a few weeks as gossip reaches them of the queen's arrest for treason, increasingly lurid accusations of sexual impropriety, and eventually her execution. In the process we see them deal with the slow, horrifying realisation of just how precarious their lives are as women in Tudor England. Central to the story is Anna (Siena Kelly,) whose outlook on her own body and sexuality is very modern - she enjoys her power over men as much if not more so than the actual sex, doesn't particularly care if she's got a reputation in the village, and is currently hooking up with Richard (Adam Hugill,) even when she discovers he's about to enter into an arranged marriage with her best friend Jane (Liv Hill.)

Although they both protest the relationship is purely physical, it does have echoes of the heartbreak experienced by Mariella (Tanya Reynolds,) when William (Angus Cooper,) who actually does love her back, still married someone else for her dowry.

Now Mariella is serving as midwife to William's pregnant wife, and trying to advise Anna against repeating a similar story. Pickett's play gradually goes from comedy to horror in a couple of hours, and offers a very effective hook to get us into its world: The trio we meet at the start could be a group of teenagers on a bus in 2025, gossiping about locals they know as well as the huge political disruption going on in London - a different world but near enough that people (always men) often visit and come back with the latest news.

Anne Boleyn is an apt focal point for the story - not only because she should be unassailable as queen, but because in her case the king marrying her entailed so many years of machinations and political upheaval. The fact that the same man's whims could so quickly lead her to the Tower, facing execution and with the entire nation parroting the new official line that she's a whore and villain, makes her part of the same ominous pattern as the rumours of women being lynched in nearby villages.

I could definitely have done with some judicious editing in the middle of the play to bring the running time down to the advertised 1 hour 50 - the climactic scene feels like it's rushing in plot twists and conflicts at a point when the play's length's already testing the audience's patience. Other than that though Lyndsey Turner's production brings through Pickett's powerful conceit, while the dramatic lighting changes from Jack Knowles help Max Jones' design of a single field where everything takes place feel varied and increasingly claustrophobic.

There's also the strong cast - Reynolds is effortlessly funny but just as effortlessly vulnerable, while Kelly provides a strong central figure a modern audience can identify with, but also with a lot of subtlety - I liked the way Anna quietly responds to finding out Richard's real opinions on things from Jane, the nastier side he conceals when he's trying to seduce her.

These are recognisably modern women whose only difference is being born in the wrong time and place, and it's not hard to take the thought to its natural conclusion that women living today could be a very few steps away from the security they take for granted disappearing like theirs does. And beyond the sexual politics there's a wider modern-day chill in the way the actions of those in power embolden everyone else to act on their darkest prejudices.

1536 by Ava Pickett is booking until the 7th of June at the Almeida Theatre (returns only.)

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.

*although spotted in tonight's audience: Natalie Dormer and Lydia Leonard, both of whom have played... Anne Boleyn. So she might not have been in the play, but she was very much in the room.