Kings Don’t Kill Their Queens… Or Do They? - A Review of 1536

1536 is all about betrayal. Lovers betraying lovers, friends betraying friends, and a King who betrayed his Queen… or was it the other way around?

Photo by Daniela Denyer Malo

While the play itself could use some better signaled trigger warnings, and is definitely not family friendly (warning for anyone looking to bring their mom or little sibling along), it is a new take on love, friends, and feminism - and a painful one at that. 

Set against the tense backdrop of Tudor England under Henry VIII, the play follows three friends navigating a world on the brink of uproar. As Anne Boleyn faces accusations of treason, their personal lives begin to unravel in parallel, each wrestling with struggles shaped - and often dictated - by the men around them. The narrative cleverly intertwines political drama with intimate conflict, offering a sharp commentary on power, gender, and agency that feels both historically grounded and strikingly relevant.

These bright women question roles and labels in society, while being quick to impose them themselves. They fight against prejudice, while imposing it on others, and they defend their values until it becomes too costly to do so. Until emotion, love, or life itself gets in the way. What seems like a lighthearted comedy at the start, forces everyone in the audience to ask themselves how far we would each really go to defend our values and our principles by the end. What is your morale worth? Is life too high a price to pay to defend your beliefs? To defend your friends? 

The play is nothing short of a work of art itself, but I myself left the theatre… with a sour aftertaste, to put it one way. You’re left almost wanting them to understand the magnitude of what they did. It feels like none of the characters learned anything, nor did any of them benefit in any way from their actions. It’s as if half of the play was still missing, the character arcs left incomplete. 

For all its apparent feminist intention, the resolution feels oddly unbalanced. Rather than witnessing characters face the consequences of their actions or meaningfully evolve in response to them, we instead see abrupt shifts in tone and personality that feel insufficiently earned.

As a result, the play seems to stop just as it is beginning to struggle with its own questions. The women at its centre appear to abandon the very convictions they earlier articulated, without the audience being shown the process of that change. What is missing is the second half of the narrative: the reflection, accountability, and consequence that would give their arcs emotional and ideological weight. Instead, we are left with unresolved trajectories and a sense that the story has been cut short before its arguments fully land.

This lack of resolution creates an uncomfortable ambiguity. Rather than offering a reframing of history through a feminist lens, the play risks flattening its own perspective, leaving the audience unsure of what it ultimately wishes to argue. One is left not with a provocative sense of closure, but with the feeling that something essential - something like context, consequence, or critique - has been withheld.

As much as the play makes you ask yourself about your values, your principles, and where you want to stand in history and society, it also leaves you questioning why you even went… leaving the theatre, one can only feel hopeless, sad, and even slightly afraid of what the future has in store for all of us. 

1536 feels like one of those uncomfortable conversations nobody wants to sit through, but everyone knows can’t be avoided. A quieter, colder remake of SIX the musical, with less glitter, and more trigger warnings. 

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Edited by Grace Mahoney. Theatre Editor.