The Other Boleyn Girl @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Hot on the heels of Richard My Richard comes Mike Poulton’s dramatisation of Philippa Gregory’s Book, directed by Lucy Bailey. The back of the stage is cleverly utilised to form Tudor arches, lit backdrops and through the use of spiral staircases to suggest the network of chambers in the Tudor Palace, where everyone spies on everyone else… Spiked pillars overhang suggesting Tudor hammerbeam ceilings and then are used on stage as pillars of a bed and columns in the palace. They also look perilously sharp!
We felt the full force of Anne Boleyn’s (Freya Mavor) temper and sharp remarks, whilst her sister Mary (Lucy Phelps) kept running — literally at the King’s beck and call. Henry VIII (James Atherton) himself was strangely absent — occasionally we saw him pouring over a desk of papers or dancing. But mostly he wasn’t there — which was strange, considering it was his palace! But he was saving himself for a big entrance when covered in blood post-jousting accident, he awkwardly called for Katherine (ex-wife) and then Mary (ex-mistress).
The focus was really on the siblings — and on what Anne and George (James Corrigan) did or didn’t do. Playing against type, Alex Kingston was a splendidly horrible mother, grappling for power and influence through her children as strategic pawns, alongside her equally horrible brother, the Duke of Norfolk (Andrew Woodall). Anne dared to stand up to them all, to her cost; whilst Mary did as she was bid, to her cost. George and his wife Jane Parker (Lily Nichol) were perhaps done a disservice — he hated her and wanted to spend more time with his ‘friend’ Francis (Peter Losasso). However, there’s no evidence for any of this beyond their childlessness and a poem. Maybe the couple liked each other and just couldn’t have children. But there has to be conspiracy otherwise no story… Jane Parker lurks in the shadows gossiping scurrilously and filthily, painfully rejected by her husband and unable to understand why, always seeking to please him.
We get the sense of how tough it was to be an elite woman at the time — get pregnant, give birth to sons or else. Katherine of Aragon (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) was portrayed well here, we got the sense of her beauty, her stately queenliness, her rulership — and how she preferred Mary to Anne as mistress, because Mary respected her still and was kind. Though her pain is apparent as Mary gives birth to a living son and the Queen remembers her lost Princeling. Anne (in contrast) just can’t wait to be Queen, usurping Katherine, and promises Henry the world, including sons, in exchange for his power and status. However, this is a trap as Henry soon starts behaving in a similar fashion with a new woman — Jane Seymour (Rosalind Lailey), and turns her schemes back at her — setting her aside for a new wife, who can give him sons. And in his case, a murderous revenge.
Working in live music, songs and dancing, there was a great sense of atmosphere. However, the costumes were weird. Only Jane Seymour and Queen Katherine had hoods — and the dresses looked more Elizabethan/Stuart than Tudor. There was a lot of plaited festival hair and eventually French hoods in the style of headbands appeared. The men (apart from the Cardinal) were in boots indoors (!) and wardrobed in lots of leather — including leather kilts and trousers, and lacked hats. Eventually, there were some very good hats indeed! The leather was embossed and gilded, but didn’t suggest enough the sumptuousness and glitter of Henry’s court — though the kilts I think were meant to give the outline of the Tudor man. (And perhaps everyone rebelled at wearing puffed shorts and Pumpkin pants). We didn’t really have the Tudor men showing off their legs as they do in all the paintings. Nor was there any fur (even fake). The women puffed their skirt dresses up to suggest pregnancy. But it does mean that we never fully enter the Tudor world, because really they’re just like us.
Anne, in courtly love fashion, excites Henry to the chase — whilst keeping him at a distance. We see her coronation, which she is disparaging about, and how she wants to control everyone about her, whilst feeling very isolated. Even her upgraded impressive sleeves don’t comfort her! The pressure grows as she can’t give Henry what he wants —living sons — or her tongue, in lashing out at those around her — or indeed Henry, as he starts wandering off after other women. Her mother horribly blames her for producing dead and miscarried children.
No Princess Mary in this production — we don’t see Anne’s cruelty towards her. Nor do we see Anne’s documented love for her daughter Elizabeth — she dislikes pointless babies here! The Cardinal (Roger Ringrose) and Cromwell are both fairly silent players — mostly seen scribbling at desks in the background occasionally. Instead, we see the jostling of noble families — such as the Seymours and the Boleyns — on the court stage, Queen Katherine’s understanding of and pity for her husband and the horrible words Elizabeth Boleyn says about her, the fraught yet loving relationship between the trio of siblings. Equally visible is the strange situation which occurs when one Queen is dead, and mourned, whilst another Queen lives, seething at the honour given to the woman she replaced.
Compared to Natalie Grueninger or Tracy Borman’s works, whilst very entertaining and dramatic, much of what we see here is cliche and thinly drawn. Characters are quite one-dimensional and the actual decisions and thought processes glossed over. However, it packs in a lot of history. There was a nice touch at the beginning where we saw Anne Boleyn at her devotions, very much a Catholic who would start reading reformist authors. We didn’t really see much of her religiousity after that — no sense of her personal mission to reform the King and England. Though we did get a sense of her cleverness, triumphing over stupid Henry by planting ideas in his head. I’m not sure it was like this in real life!
Be that as it may, Freya Mavor does give a marvellous Anne Boleyn (we feel the full force of her self-belief and intelligence), whilst Lucy Phelps’ Mary gasps, gets bundled from husband to King to potentially the next husband and just seeks to get her children back. And you have to feel for Queen Katherine honouring her husband’s mistress as ‘Queen’ of the Court.
Overall, diverting, but dodgy history! I did enjoy the mask creation with a Lord of Misrule/Green Man — and how Anne prepped herself as Queen of the May with George as her most loyal night and both proudly marched back out into the court arena, only to be exploded with bright light. I enjoyed also Mary standing up to her sister’s Queenly pronouncements and the romance between Mary and Stafford (Oscar Batterham) — Stafford gets the best lines! We also, more than in the films, got a real sense of Carey’s (Jacob Ifan) pain and humiliation as the cuckolded husband forced into impossible social positions by his in-laws and his King. In a nice touch too, Anne often breaks into French, sometimes conversing in French with her brother or father (Ben Jones). Enjoy too the romance and apparent secret marriage between Percy (Osa Audu) and Anne, as he has an excellent hat!
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