1536

Ambassadors Theatre

For the vast majority of my life, the first week of June has been dedicated to birthday celebrations: in the last millennium it was principally occupied by my mother’s big day (ending with her death from ovarian cancer in 2000), and from 2001 the focus was fixed firmly on my now ex-husband.  Rather than mope around the house observing the absence of cakes and candles, deafened by the silence of nobody singing Happy Birthday and shedding tears at the sight of the empty space on the kitchen table where I have so often stacked an abundance of wrapped treats and gifts, I have started a new tradition of spending the no-longer-very-special days in the theatre, the cinema or at an exhibition, settling on distraction as a strategy for avoiding overthinking and maudlin nostalgia.

Ava Pickett’s play 1536 has transferred to the West End from the Almeida having garnered all the applause and awards and been co-produced by none other than Margot Robbie (who cleverly used her promotional tour and interviews for WUTHERING HEIGHTS to mention the show ad infinitum and bestow all the superlatives on young Ava, “the very, very bestest writer working today…”  Honestly, she really is a marketing maestro, is she not?).  Three women gather to hear the latest gossip from London, not least the news that the King, Henry VIII, has had his wife, Anne Boleyn, arrested for treason (and yes, you are correct in understanding the play’s title, 1536, to be the year in which it is set… i.e rather than the price of a ticket…).  Surely not?  How could a man who had orchestrated a split from Rome and the establishment of the Church of England to facilitate the union just two years ago now preside over his bride’s demise?

And so begins an origin story which shines a light on the gender politics with which we are all still grappling today, some half a millennium later.   This is the moment, avers Ava, when it all began to go kinda wrong for women in England and beyond, and we can track the rise in misogyny all the way from Henry VIII to… well… certainly to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, obvs, and also to HSTIkkyTokky and to his fellow occupants of the Manosphere, to Russell Brand, to Harvey Weinstein, to the Alexander Brothers etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc….

Before it all went tits up/heads off, the showmance between King Henry and his second wife was the stuff of country gals’ fairy tales.  Imagine loving someone and wanting to marry them so, so, so very much you’re prepared to upend nearly a thousand years of Catholicism, piss off the Papacy and risk triggering a civil war?  Soooooo romantic, right?!  This shit is Napoleon and Josephine-world-map-changing-killing-millions-level romantic!  But there is a thin line, as they say, and rumours of infidelity and Anne’s failure to bear a male heir (although some credit is due for birthing Elizabeth I, surely?  I mean, her 44 year reign looks pretty darn impressive once you have some distance from it and are less distracted by her chesticles…) soured the marriage somewhat, plus the King’s eye had already been caught by Jane Seymour (understandably… she was stunning in LIVE AND LET DIE).  And while Henry may have been the first person in England to get a divorce, he obvs enjoyed it about as much as me, because he opted not to file his decree nisi via the ye olden times equivalent of the HMCTS on-line divorce portal, but rather to summon an expert swordsman from France to the Tower of London and swiftly remove Anne’s head.  Yikes.

During much of 1536, I was thinking not about Anne Boleyn, not so much, but about Catherine of Aragon (who doesn’t even get a mention!).  Catherine married Henry in 1509 during his relatively short-lived hella hot phase, and the union endured for some 24 years (which is 14 years more than the sum total of the following five wives!  And even if Henry was totes infatuated with Anne for the last nine or so…).  She had only one surviving child, Mary, and upon dissolution of the marriage she was banished from court to spend her remaining days at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, dying of cancer in 1536 at age 50.  And yes, as a depressed divorcee who is 50 years old and living with cancer, I do indeed identify with Catherine of Aragon (and my brother’s nickname for me is Catherine of Arrogance, so… there’s that!), and I believe my mother would have, too.  And, tbh, the only thing I can think of that would have really, really, really cheered Catherine up as she presumably milled around her vacuous estate, observing no-longer-celebrated birthdays of ex-husbands and family members, is the news her rival and replacement, Anne Boleyn, had been beheaded.  Divorce is really, really, really hard, guys, so if a beheading (or two… how’d Catherine Parr not see that coming?!) is what’s needed to lighten the mood and give ol’ Catherine something to smile about, then so be it.  Silver linings, eh?

If you can possibly do so, get thee to the Ambassadors Theatre to see 1536, but if not then have no fear: a BBC adaptation is on the way and Ava Pickett (and Margot Robbie is correct… she’s truly brilliant and very, very funny, too) is also writing JEHANNE D’ARC for Baz Luhrmann (which sounds spectacular right?!  Spectacularly good… or spectacularly bad?  Hmmmmmm.  Let’s all say our prayers to the movie gods… 🙏). ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️