4 days ago
Anne Boleyn's stunning childhood home brings this new musical to life
The worldwide success of the musical Six means that the labyrinthine love life of Henry VIII is currently hot property when it comes to theatre. As its diligent yet uninspired title might suggest, Anne Boleyn the Musical doesn't have the snap and sass of Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow's hit show, or indeed its catchy tunes. But then Six cannot boast Hever Castle, Anne's real childhood home, as the stunning backdrop for the show. Belgian company Historalia are specialists when it comes to large-scale musicals in picturesque settings and their first outing in this country is impressive in both scale and ambition.
A specially constructed covered 1800-seat arena offers guaranteed shelter from any rain, with an open back 'wall' looking out on to Hever's grounds. Not only is the sight of honey-coloured evening light bathing the castle a delight that no amount of stage trickery could hope to reproduce, but nature's own lighting states represent the perfect pathetic fallacy for Anne's narrative arc, right to her eventual tragic ending. As the glow of a summer's evening gives way to nightfall, so does the King's initial ardour dim when Anne fails to provide him with the male heir he so desperately craves.
A professional cast of 11 along with an impressively drilled and highly tuneful community ensemble of 40 take us through the familiar story, onto which writer Rebecca Night attempts to put her own stamp through emphasising Anne's learning ('probably the most educated woman in England') and reforming tendencies.
This Anne (Emily Lane) is little short of a secular saint, a feminist and a social campaigner rolled into one, albeit one inclined not to linger upon the awkward fact that Henry (Mark Goldthorp) already has a wife when he first starts to court her. Lane has a powerful voice – To Catch the Light is Anne's plangent lament when she realises that her marriage hangs by a thread – and Goldthorp rocks the full Damian Lewis, the actor who played the capricious monarch so memorably in Wolf Hall.
We listen to words and music through binaural headphones, which allow us to hear different sounds in each ear. This technical achievement by sound designers Ben and Max Ringham is a first for an outdoor production, and more extensive and sophisticated use of this innovation will surely be made in future iterations.
What is most fascinating about Roxana Silbert's production is often not what is happening on the wide stage, which is bedecked with moveable wooden stage furniture representing chapel screens, libraries and the like. It's the deep perspective of the background, stretching out over Hever's gardens, which intrigues, as messengers occasionally belt along the paths and Henry arrives on a real white horse for his first visit to Hever. This unexpected regal jaunt causes flap and flurry for Joan (Kim Ismay), Hever's amusing chatterbox of a housekeeper, and also gives rise to the evening's wittiest song, whose urgent refrain urges the staff to 'dig out the silver'.
Tickets are not cheap, ranging from £50 to £97 for the 'platinum premium' experience, but this is packaged as an entire evening's entertainment, complete with the opportunity to wander around Hever's picturesque grounds pre-show. I suspect that we'll be hearing and seeing considerably more of Historalia in future British summers.
Until Aug 30. Info: 0288 6422174;
