1536

Following a ★★★★★ sold-out run at the Almeida, 1536 transfers to The Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End.

Written by Ava Pickett, winner of the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and directed by Lyndsey Turner (Chimerica), this “razor-sharp, darkly comic and blisteringly relevant” (Independent) new play explores the dynamics of female friendship in a world stacked against women.

Kings don’t kill their wives alright? It’s not – it just don’t happen. It doesn’t.

Tudor England.

A field in Essex.

Three women hurry to their childhood meeting place, thirsty for gossip from London.

Word spreads of a clash between King Henry VIII and his Queen, Anne Boleyn. And closer to home, another rumour begins to catch fire.

As these women begin to see echoes of the royal drama in their own rural lives and a rise in violence spreads throughout the land, the actions of a queen imprisoned in a tower threaten to cost them everything.

Written as part of the Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme, Ava Pickett’s 1536 was commended by The George Devine Award for its “sparkling dialogue and savage undercurrent”.