Writer: Howard Brenton
Director: Michael Reilly
The story of Anne Boleyn is all too familiar, one of the most famous in English history: a great romance unconsummated for seven years, resulting in the birth of the Church of England just so Henry VIII could marry her. In the twenty-first century, Anne’s former, rather misogynistic reputation as a scheming harlot has been completely reassessed, seeing her now as a self-assured intellectual and victim of a political conspiracy to get rid of her when the now sexually sated monarch tired of her. Howard Brenton’s 2010 play takes that idea of Anne’s rehabilitation a stage further, crediting her as the architect of the Protestant Enlightenment, a play now revived by the Tower Theatre as it draws the curtain on its spring and summer season.
Brenton hasn’t altered the story much, except to emphasise Anne’s religious reforming credentials and how the men she supported, including banned writer William Tyndale and up-and-coming statesman Thomas Cromwell, ultimately betrayed her (if not their own religious principles) when she became a political liability. But Brenton encases Anne’s story in a relatively unconvincing frame in which the newly anointed James I searches for her ghost while trying to settle religious division in his own time with a new bible.
There are quite a lot of dense and, dare we admit, not terribly interesting, doctrinal detail in Brenton’s work which this Tower Theatre production directed by Michael Reilly makes rather heavy weather of, slowing down an already long night. Having recently staged an excellent version of Annie Baker’s Mirror Circle Transformation requiring only a very small cast, Anne Boleyn demands many more people on stage, yet it feels hesitant, perhaps under-rehearsed, with actors not yet confidently inhabiting their characters or their point of view, sometimes gabbling, at others over-stretching or over-egging moments that make the pacing feel jagged.
But full credit to the Tower Theatre costume team led by Jackie Robinson and Kathleen Morrison who deliver a real feel for the scale and luxury of the Tudor and early Stuart courts with rich, embroidered fabrics and striking designs; it is really quite the wardrobe they have, some of which may have appeared in their adaptation of Shakespeare in Love last year and certainly adds to the creation of era and status. Fine work too from lighting designer Alexander Kampmann, particularly in creating a crackling fire in the woodland from some flashing orange, red and yellow spots.
Olivia Reed’s Anne is sprightly and certainly very comfortable onstage, largely convincing as a more austere and theologically-minded version of the controversial Queen. Brenton doesn’t offer much range or development, rather a series of events that are known, but Reed makes the most of confrontations with powerful and respected men. Among the secondary cast, Patrick Culhane rather channels Jonathan Rhys Meyer as Henry VIII with hints of an Irish accent bleeding through, while only Simon Vaughan as Thomas Cromwell offers the clearest and most consistent performance as the aide who rises as quickly as Anne but lasts far longer. With a strong stage presence, the Tower programmers might consider seeking the rights to perform the RSC’s Wolf Hall trilogy with Vaughan reprising this Cromwell.
Anne Boleyn, though, proves a weaker entry in a season of contemporary gems at the Tower Theatre, but just as Jane Seymour quickly replaced Anne in the King’s affections, the autumn season will be here soon enough.
Runs until 1 August 2026
