FUNNY, FIERCE, AND FRIGHTENING RELEVANT

By Emma Carney | Bunny Pudding · Digital Coven · @bunnyscopes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

I have been desperate to see 1536 since its acclaimed first performance at the Almeida, and I am delighted to say I was not disappointed. It lives up to the buzz entirely. This is a fantastic, funny, and energetic show with a narrative that starts bright and slowly twists into something much darker.

The show runs 1 hour and 50 minutes with no interval, but honestly, it never drags. The action moves at such a pace that you won’t have time to glance at your watch.

The play follows three young women in Essex during the year Anne Boleyn lost her head. Anna, Mariella, and Jane spend their days gossiping in a field, swapping rumours, and updating each other on their lives. The dialogue is quick, witty, and properly funny. These women feel like real friends – they tease each other, support each other, and occasionally irritate each other. The chemistry between the superb cast of Siena Kelly, Tanya Reynolds, and Liv Hill is extraordinary. They are absolutely a girl group I would love to go for a few drinks with.

But the comedy is a trap. As Anne Boleyn’s prospects worsen in London, the political tension bleeds into village life. The women start to notice that the men around them are changing. What begins as a laugh-out-loud comedy about Tudor gossip slowly becomes something far more uncomfortable. The tonal shift is masterfully handled. One minute you are laughing at a ridiculous gag about leaves, and the next you are watching these women realise that their world is closing in on them. Certainly a relatable feeling in this Tiktok age. 

Kelly’s Anna is flirty, funny, and fierce, but underneath there is a deep melancholy. She seeks validation from the village men, partly because she has no other options and partly because she is terrified of her uncertain future. Reynolds plays Mariella as a midwife who has inherited her life path from the women before her. She is emotionally intelligent and picks up on the changing vibes long before anyone else speaks them aloud. Hill’s Jane retreats further into religion and piety, trying to cope with the world around her and the consequences of the choices men make about her life. Even when you follow every rule, even when you are good and quiet and obedient, none of it guarantees safety. That truth runs through the entire play like a dark thread.

The men are mostly offstage, and that absence speaks volumes. When Richard and William do appear – played by Oliver Johnstone and George Kemp – the energy shifts completely. Just seeing them walk into a scene is enough to put you on edge. The women’s body language changes. The easy laughter stops. You realise, watching them, that the freedom the women had when the men were gone was only ever temporary. 

Max Jones’s set is a constant stretch of tall grass, transformed beautifully by Jack Knowles’s lighting. It moves from a warm yellow haze to a blood-red glow as the play progresses. Tingying Dong’s sound design punctuates key moments with jolting bursts that raise the tension. When Anne is beheaded, the backdrop glows like the field is on fire. “The men are not just changing,” Jane says. “The men are celebrating.”

I overheard someone in the queue mention that the ending may have been tweaked since the Almeida run. Whatever changes were made, they worked. This is a play about how political events ripple down from the top and impact ordinary lives – from female friendships to economic survival. Nearly five hundred years later, it still feels urgent.

If Anne Boleyn can be killed by a man who claimed to love her, what hope is there for anyone else? That question stays with you long after you leave the theatre. 1536 is essential viewing.

1536 is running at Ambassadors Theatre until Saturday 1 August.

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Photo Credit: Helen Murray

CAST

Anna – Siena Kelly
Mariella – Tanya Reynolds
Jane – Liv Hill
Richard – Oliver Johnstone
William – George Kemp

CREATIVES

Writer – Ava Pickett
Director – Lyndsey Turner
Set Designer – Max Jones
Lighting Designer – Jack Knowles
Sound Designer – Tingying Dong
Costume Designer – Evie Gurney
Movement Director – Shelley Maxwell
Casting Director – Bryony Jarvis-Jones