Review | The Other Boleyn Girl at Chichester Festival Theatre: 'The finest start to the season we could have hoped for'

What the historians amongst you must realise is that it’s an adaptation of a novel based on historical events – so not everything the play presents as fact is, indeed, fact.

That, however, doesn’t detract from a banging show.

Following, essentially, the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn through the story of her relationships with her family including sister Mary – the other Boleyn girl of the title – let’s start with a big hats-off to director Lucy Bailey and her creative team.

The set looms, menacingly, as you take your seats; dark, shadowy, the suggestion of movement on the upper-levels. It’s black; it’s white; it’s grey. The costuming, however, suggests the palette of Caravaggio and, whether intentional or not, the lighting is also suggestive of that artist’s work. And then there’s the music – played live on stage by Nitai Levi, Chris Green and Sarah Harrison – that suggests Tudor music but isn’t. It may once have been, but now it’s something different, something very twenty-first century rooted firmly in the time of the play.

And what of the performances?

Well – there’s no-one in there that lets the side down – not a one; this is a strong, strong cast. That’s not to say any of the Boleyns (even Mary – though she comes closest) is likeable. Anne – as played by the splendid Freya Mavor – is an out-and-out brat; spoilt, demanding, selfish. Sister Mary – the wonderful Lucy Phelps – is the only one of them you’d want to spend social-time with; she’s the most human and caring of the lot and the only one who seems prepared to bond with someone for the sake of love. The sexually-ambivalent George Boleyn is played by the very effective James Corrigan; effective because he makes George likeable, so when the truth of the other aspect of his relationship with his sister Anne becomes clear you feel truly sickened.

Alex Kingston as the mother of the three siblings and Andrew Woodall as her brother, are both excellent, wringing much humour from their characters’ single-minded determination to make one of the girls – or both, they really don’t care – the lover of the king and Kemi-Bo Jacobs makes a fine job of the conniving (though greatly wronged!) Katherine of Aragon.

It’s atmospheric, it’s funny, it’s dark and it’s a treat.

Quite possibly the finest start to the season we could have hoped for.