1536: a ‘once-in-a-blue-moon theatrical experience’

Ava Pickett’s debut play, “1536”, became the hottest ticket in town when it premiered at the Almeida, said Isobel Lewis in Time Out. Film star Margot Robbie was so impressed, she came on board as co-producer for this West End transfer. As if that wasn’t enough of a flying start, Pickett is also adapting her play for the BBC, and has written a film about Joan of Arc with Baz Luhrmann. Indeed, her rise has been so stellar, I found myself wondering if “1536” – about the lives of three young women in rural Essex, in the month of Anne Boleyn’s arrest, trial and execution – could really live up to the hype.

The answer is that it absolutely does, and then some. A devastating mixture of comedy and chilling horror, superbly acted, directed and designed, it is a “once-in-a-blue-moon theatrical experience. I laughed. I cried. I probably could have screamed too.”

This “sharp-tongued” play is not about Anne Boleyn herself, said Alex Wood on WhatsOnStage. It is “about the trickle-down effect of misogyny and how political events can ripple through society – to impact everything from female friendship to economic survival”.

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The three friends hang out in the countryside, gossiping about men, work, and the rumours they hear about goings-on in the distant court, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. But the king’s brutality towards his wife is emboldening the local men in their own acts of violence, and as the women talk in a “very 21st-century way, they risk being cancelled in a very 16th-century way”. In particular, Pickett subtly and skilfully maps Boleyn onto the character of Anna (Siena Kelly), an attractive serving girl whose sexuality is first prized, then punished.

“The building momentum and deepening sophistication are perfectly judged,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph, “and the accusatory message about women’s constrained lives, then and now, emerges via consummate craft.” The last breathless line of the play is “Run!” And I recommend you do indeed run, to catch this superb production before it sells out.

Ambassadors Theatre, London WC2. Until 1 August