Chichester Festival Theatre: "a world which is ruthless and cut-throat" in opening play

“It's a world of violence and superstition and religion. You have to remember that we are very much in the mediaeval world, not long after the Wars of the Roses. It is a world which is ruthless and cut-throat and death is always just around the corner for everyone. We are not in a world of nice Elizabethan bows. We're in a world of base desire.”

Lucy predicts people will be more than happy to return to 2024 Chichester afterwards – though certainly having had an enthralling time. Mike Poulton’s adaptation of the novel by Philippa Gregory runs from Friday, April 19-Saturday, May 11.

For Lucy inevitably the key way into the piece is through the script but she likes to go wider too: “You have to remember that everything you do is in the script and that the script has been crafted in close partnership. Mike and Philippa have spent many years developing it together, and Phillipa feels that the script represents the novel. But I've also read the novel two or three times. I always really enjoy seeing adaptations of novels on stage because there is so much added depth. There is richness that comes from the wealth of material but also I just really enjoy delving into history. I have run myself ragged going around Hampton Court and the Holbein exhibition and I went to Hever Castle and to the Tower. A lot of actors will just say ‘Get on the stage and say the lines!’ but I really enjoy exploring it all. I think it enables me to step into the shoes of someone else especially someone that is so interesting, the fact that Mary longs to be away from the court at the family home at Hever Castle. And driving to Hever I like to think that I got a feeling for what she was doing in wanting to go back there.

“From the play and from the book and from speaking to Philippa and to Mike you get the feeling that Mary was a woman ahead of her time. Mary and her sister Anne are looking for agency in a ruthless time but they are trying to find that agency in completely different ways that sometimes are completely opposed to each other. Ultimately Mary operates in a completely different way to her sister on a very emotional level.

"She has a very, very big heart. There are two surviving letters, one of which is an appeal she made to Cromwell for some money once she had been rejected, and in the letter she's talking about how she married for love and that really was quite something in those days.

“Mary and Anne are two sides of the same coin in a way and we also focus on George as well, their brother. They are a symbiotic threesome, these three siblings fighting together but also swinging from hatred to love and knowing that they don't have perhaps one quality that the other two do have. It is the ultimate sibling rivalry.”

The Other Boleyn Girl is at Chichester Festival Theatre from Friday, April 19-Saturday, May 11 with tickets available from the theatre.