By Mike Poulton
Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory
Directed by Lucy Bailey
Designed by Joanna Parker
Composer Orlando Gough
Chichester Festival Theatre
Tuesday 7th May 2024, 14.30
CAST
James Atherton – King Henry VIII
Osa Audu – Harry Percy / Tom Seymour
Oscar Batterham -William Stafford
James Corrigan – George Boleyn
Jacob Ifan – William Carey / Edward Seymour
Kemi-Bo Jacobs – Queen Katherine / Midwife
Ben Jones – Thomas Boleyn
Alex Kingston – Lady Elizabeth Boleyn
Rosalind Lailey- Jane Seymour
Nitai Levi – Mark Smeaton
Peter Lossano – Francis Weston
Freya Mavor- Anne Boleyn
Lily Nichol – Jane Parker
Lucy Phelps – Mary Boleyn
Roger Ringrose- Cardinal Wolsey / Thomas Cromwell
Andrew Woodall- Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
Chris Green – Musician / MD
Sarah Harrison Musician
This was an unusual and somewhat daunting two plays in a day for us, afternoon at the Festival Theatre. Dinner in the theatre restaurant. Evening in the Minerva Theatre.
Mike Poulton did the RSC texts for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. Friends who saw them at Stratford loved them. We saw them in London in a theatre which was far too large, and we were at the back. We didn’t like them at all. OK, we heard the unabridged version of Wolf Hall and Bring up The Bodies, we saw the TV series, we saw the play. We saw Six Wives of Henry VIII and countless other takes on the story. So what’s different in this Philippa Gregory earlier version of the same story? Why is it worth revisiting the same grounds for Mike Poulton?
Mike Poulton: After my two previous excursions into the court of Henry VIII, I imagined my long interview with the narcissistic, thin-skinned would-be dictator was over. And then I discovered Philippa Gregory’s compelling story of Mary Boleyn and was drawn into the behind-the-scenes world of powerful women, denied a political role, but ambitious to steer the overloaded ship of state … it is interesting to note that our King Charles III is not descended from Henry VIII. He is, however, through his grandmother, a direct descendant of Mary Boleyn.
Introduction to the play text
The 2008 film version (adapted by Andrew Davies) has a list of historical inaccuracies. It misses Mary’s important romance with King Francois I. Anne Boleyn became the older sister of Mary, but she was the younger. Anne’s seven years in France becomes two months. Will the stage version get it right? We didn’t have high hopes for it … but …
Poulton knew exactly what he was doing. Hilary Mantel’s Tudor stuff is all from Thomas Cromwell’s point of view. Here, he only appears in Act Two after the death of Wolseley, and is at a desk in the background. He has no lines, though we see people reporting to him. On the convoluted relationships, the programme has a clear family tree (as it should), and he makes sure characters’ names are used frequently to ground us (as all the men are dressed in black).
The transparent set is a device that Chichester has used before. There’s the constant movement of the court through the glass. Then when they’re in the country, trees are projected onto it. Later a galloping wolf is projected. The stage has a circular pit in front of the set, with a raised walkway around it. One review says the image of Henry VIII is in the circle … not from where we were sitting in the second row, but Chichester’s auditorium goes up high. The suspended poles catch light, and four can descend to create a four poster bed.
It’s immediately engaging, and focuses on the three siblings, Mary, George and Anne Boleyn. Their domineering mother is the sister of the powerful Duke of Norfolk. They literally pimped Mary to the King, by whom she had two bastards. Mary’s husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles William Carey, had to stand by and accept it. All Mary wanted to do was to live in the country at Cheever. Anne, who got sent to their grandmother’s house at Cheever, hated the country, and complained her grandmother stank, and was desperate to get back to court.
The whole relies on the performances from highly experienced actors. James Corrigan was Paloman in the RSC’s Two Noble Kinsmen in 2016, Mark Anthony in 2017. Lucy Phelps as Mary Boleyn has earned her RSC miles, notably as Isabella in Measure for Measure.
Freya Mavor as Anne Boleyn was new to us, but she was so good that we know we’ll see her again soon in another leading role. Anne is manipulative, spiteful and regal to her siblings once she achieves power, insisting they bow and say ‘Your Grace.’ The role also involves two graphic miscarriages.
George Boleyn is a complex character, in a gay romantic relationship with his friend Francis, yet ordered to marry Jane Parker (Lily Nichol) who he loathes. She is a spy, a creep and a tell-tale. The play text imagined the three siblings in a tub in front of the fire. Naked? Anyway, in the production they’re just lying together in night shifts. There are hints (kisses on the lips) that the three may be unnaturally close (as stated in the adultery case against Anne, which is outside the story) but it’s in the air.
The wilful Anne conducts a secret marriage with Harry Percy (Osa Audu), with Anne and George as witnesses, but Jane Parker sees them. The marriage will be disappeared from history.
Then there’s the mother, Elizabeth Boleyn (Alex Kingston) and her brother, The Duke of Norfolk (Andrew Woodall). There’s a pair with vaulting ambition if ever you saw them. Mary’s out of favour? Pimp Anne to the King. They pay lip service to the divine right of kings, but find the tale that Edward IV was sired by a sturdy archer funny … in Tudor England disparaging stories about Yorkists like Richard III and Edward IV were popular. Andrew Woodall’s duke is an irritable misogynist and manipulator.
Kemi-Bo Jacobs is Katherine of Aragon. She looks Spanish, looks like a Queen, sounds Spanish and is a dominating presence on stage. In Act two she switches to the midwife.
James Atherton as Henry VIII only has to look kingly in act one. Then in act two we have the jousting accident which starts him getting lines.
Roger Ringrose as Cardinal Wolseley is omnipresent in the background, but gets few lines … and when he gets them, they are powerful. This again differentiates it from Hilary Mantel’s version where Wolseley and Cromwell are the major characters.
Oscar Batterham’s Stafford starts out as a gopher and spy but convinces us that he falls in love with Mary, and all they want to do is farm and raise children.
The music? It needs to be on CD. There’s ethereal chanting. Powerful guitar plus violin dance accompaniment, a great song. I’d buy the CD right away.
I bought the play text. They didn’t do Scene 38, the last scene of the text. This is particularly odd as Mike Poulton’s introduction is dated April 2024, and the edition lists the Chichester cast. They ended here with Anne and George quietly walking off at the rear exit. Black out. So they adapted the adaptation, and quite strongly so. I thought the ending was more moving by being less explicit. Nearly all (maybe not 100% though) of the audience know they’re going off to their deaths. However, Anne and George are still holding on to the thread that it will work out alright. That’s poignant. The cut scene has their dead bodies, Norfolk and an executioner, and Henry VIII revealing his face as a skull. It was more effective the way they did it, I believe. Maybe they tried it and felt it didn’t work.
So plot spoiler: in this production, we leave the characters before they lose their heads.
We thought the cast was solid. Not a weak spot. Lighting, costume, direction … and especially music … were all five star. I have heard in the past that Mantel’s tale is BBC2 / Channel 4 in appeal, Philippa Gregory’s is BBC1 prime time 9 pm Sunday evening. There’s nothing wrong with being popular. Compliments to Chichester on another lobby display, this time on Tudor costumes from productions.
*****
WHAT THE CRITICSSAID
5 star
Libby Purves, Theatre Cat *****
4 star
The i ****
The Stage ****
Daily Mail ****
Mail on Sunday ****
3 star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ***
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***
Gareth Carr, What’s On Stage ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
MIKE POULTON (dramatist)
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, RSC West End 2014
Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel, RSC West End 2014
Fortune’s Fool by Ivan Turgenev, Old Vic 2014
The Syndicate by Eduardo de Filippo, Bath 2011
LUCY BAILEY (Director)
Switzerland by Joanna Murray Smith, Bath Ustinov 2018
Titus Andronicus, The Globe 2014
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2012
The Winter’s Tale, RSC 2013
Fortune’s Fool, The Old Vic, 2014
The Importance of Being Earnest (Bunbury Players) 2014
King Lear, Bath 2013
Comus, by John Milton, Wanamaker Playhouse 2016
LUCY PHELPS
Measure for Measure RSC 2019 (Isabella)
Dido, Queen of Carthage, Christopher Marlowe, RSC 2017
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017
As You Like It, RSC 2019
JAMES CORRIGAN
Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre, 2022 ( Bob ‘Wingnut’ Acres)
Coriolanus, RSC 2017
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017 (Mark Anthony)
The Two Noble Kinsmen, RSC 2016 (Paloman)
Othello, RSC 2015 (Roderigo)
Hay Fever, Bath Theatre Royal (Sandy Tyrell)
ANDREW WOODALL
Antony & Cleopatra, Globe 2017 (Endobarbus)
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017 (Julius Caesar)
Wars of The Roses: Henry VI, Rose Kingston (Gloucester)
Wars of The Roses: Richard III, Rose Kingston (Derby)
First Light, Chichester 2016 (Major General Shea)
ALEX KINGSTON
The Tempest, RSC 2023 (Prospero)
KEMI-BO JACOBS
The Winter’s Tale, RSC 2021 (Hermione)
All My Sons, Arthur Miller, Salisbury Playhouse 2015
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