In this electrifying debut play by Ava Pickett, the lives of three young women in Essex during Henry VIII’s reign – and by extension the lives of women today - are refracted through the lens of the King’s repudiation and execution of his once-beloved wife Anne Boleyn. It’s a bold, idiosyncratic and disturbingly funny work that slightly overplays its hand towards the end. Lyndsey Turner’s vibrant production features tremendous central performances from Siena Kelly, Tanya Reynolds and Liv Hill.
Pickett sets out her stall straight away, with Kelly’s comely servant Anna being rogered against a tree by a local landowner’s son. No sooner has he come and gone than Hill’s stolid, simple Jane arrives to tell of the Queen’s imprisonment. With Mariella (Reynolds), they boggle, scoff at, and digress from the momentous news, their manner and language a mix of modern and archaic, liberally laced with good old Anglo-Saxon F- and C-bombs.
