Margot Robbie backs Tudor play 1536: ‘Women are still having the same conversations’

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As rumours spread that Anne Boleyn, the English queen, is about to be executed, three working-class women in Essex sit around drinking, gossiping and wondering what it all means for them.

That’s the premise of 1536, the Tudor-set play that has arrived in London’s West End with backing from Hollywood star Margot Robbie.

The Barbie actor tells the BBC she first heard about the project years ago, when it was just a script “and everyone was telling me I’d be obsessed with it, and they were right”.

Written by Ava Pickett, the play reimagines one of the most famous moments in British history not through royalty or court politics, but through the eyes of ordinary women navigating fear, friendship and a world becoming increasingly hostile towards women.

Despite being set almost 500 years ago, many of the themes feel strikingly familiar.

“It’s set in 1536 but the conversations these women have are the same ones that women now are having,” Robbie says. “I feel like I’m friends with these women and I know them.”

1536

That sense of familiarity was exactly what Pickett wanted audiences to feel. The idea for the play came from conversations she was having with her own friends about violence against women and the anxieties many women privately share with each other, the writer explains.

“I wanted to create characters that aren’t incredibly brave or incredibly capable of changing the world around them, but instead they are just three normal women experiencing a rising tide of misogyny.

“A lot of us are having similar conversations with our mates where we think about how terrifying it feels to be a woman right now.”

Despite being Pickett’s debut play, 1536 has already been commissioned by the BBC as an eight-part drama series adaptation. The 32-year-old is now also co-writing Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming Joan of Arc film, Jehanne d’Arc.

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The play opened at London’s Almeida theatre last year and has now transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.

A review by The Times said the “hype is justified” and called the play a “feminist drama, one that highlights a rigged system that prizes and punishes female sexuality”.

The four-star review also praised the three cast members at the centre of the story – Liv Hill, Siena Kelly and Tanya Reynolds – and called them “stars in the making”.

Speaking to the BBC, Hill says the play completely changed the way she thinks about historical dramas.

“I hated history at school because it felt very dry, but this play makes the Tudor era feel so relevant and relatable because these girls could be girls from 2026.”

Robbie agrees and says the play manages to be “thought-provoking and fun at the same time”.

“It doesn’t feel like homework, but it’s also nourishing and you want to talk to your friends about it afterwards.”

For Reynolds, part of what makes 1536 feel different from many Tudor dramas is its focus on the women who are usually missing from historical accounts.

“There’s so little record of normal people from this time, there’s hardly anything but I think they probably would have been a lot like the women in the play,” she says.

Pickett believes that “a huge amount is learned about re-examining events and history through the female gaze, particularly women who weren’t of note”.

“These are everyday working-class women living on the edge of a country and it’s incredibly important we try and wrench women out of the shadows.”

1536

Reviewing the play during its Almeida Theatre run last year, The Guardian wrote that the it “asks the question: just how much have things really changed for women today?”

The four-star review added that it is “both an easy and a deeply unsettling watch”.

London Theatre praised the play in its four-star review and said “it is decidedly modern in its outlook, colloquial speech, and, most potently, impact”.

The theatre website went on to say the play highlights how “we are still grappling with many of the same issues: gendered hypocrisy, slut-shaming, the corrosive danger of misinformation and mob mentality”.

Despite the darker themes running through the play, both Pickett and Robbie say humour remains central to the story.

“I hope audiences have empathy for all three women,” Pickett says, adding that audiences often say they want more layered and complex female characters on stage.

Robbie adds that people “will be surprised how much they laugh” and “it’s so funny throughout”.

“Considering the things happening, to keep the humour throughout is an incredible feat. Up until the last five minutes, you’re laughing the whole way through.”

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