I notice that the three last theatre performances I saw were all based on real people, although the presentation of the stories was very different across all three productions.
Six, a musical based on the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII. A burst of joy I didn't know I needed. The show is presented as a competition between the six wives, trying to out story / out sing each other in an attempt to be the ultimate queen.
There is joy and sadness and bitterness and resignation and perhaps a little bit of smugness in the songs (yes, Anna of Cleeves, I'm looking at you) but there are aspects of the stories of the six wives I hadn't considered before.
Jane Seymour, sad because she died after giving birth and didn't get to see her son grow up ("Heart of Stone"). Katherine Howard, who had been used by men since she was 13, Henry just one in a line of many who wanted to possess her youth and beauty ("All you wanna do"). Catherine Parr, who had to give up on the idea of marrying the love of her life "I don't need your love") because Henry pointed his finger and said "It's her."
The presentation of Anne Boleyn did annoy me though, making her out to be a shallow, self obsessed texting insta-influencer character, as she sings "Don't lose Ur head".
It's a short musical, at around 80 minutes (no interval) but fun, with catchy tunes.
Underdog, the other other Brontë sister, a play presenting the competition between the three sisters. (Oh wait, you did know there were three Brontë sisters, didn't you?)
I guess everyone has a favourite Brontë sister.
Maybe you chose Charlotte because after all she wrote the most books and Jane Eyre was iconic and quotable after all ("Reader, I married him.")
Maybe you are team Emily because she wrote the best poetry (even Charlotte admitted this in the play) and Wuthering Heights was a gothic masterpiece; and of course it has the Kate Bush connection and that adds lots of appeal.
But how many people put their hand up for Team Anne?
Just me? Oh, OK then.
(I'll be explain why I'm team Anne later.)
This play tells the story of Charlotte and Emily and Anne. Three women living in remote Yorkshire, educated but poor, their mother dead, their brother a drunk, their father a pastor but of so little influence he doesn't even appear as a character in this play.
The play uses some degree of humour to explain the dynamics between the three sisters. Charlotte, the eldest, bossy and domineering and refusing to compromise. Emily, fiercely private but also stubborn. And Anne, the youngest, "the mouse" as Charlotte calls her, trying to do the right thing, trying to keep the peace.
Three women turn to writing to earn some money. They are writing under male pseudonyms because after all this is in 1845 and there are things it is not acceptable for women to write about, especially if they write about anything challenging or "unfeminine".
The play covers several themes - creativity, competition, sibling rivalry. Charlotte, desperate to be recognised for the genius she's sure she is who wants her seat at the table; is pitted against Anne, who is writing to give a platform to the social injustices she sees in the world around her.
Charlotte doesn't come out of this looking good, her own longing for success and fame leading her to refuse republishing of Anne's successful novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall with its (for the time) shocking depictions of violence and abuse within a marriage.
The play also raises the question of just how many seats there are for women at the table. When Anne's Agnes Grey looks set to be published at the same time as Jane Eyre, Anne and Charlotte argue that there is not enough space for two novels about governesses. Charlotte gestures to a pile of books by men as being about "War, war, famous man from history, famous man from history, war, famous man…" If men write the same thing all the time and no one judges them, she argues, surely there is enough space for two women to write different books on the same subject?
It feels like these debates are still going on today, perhaps not in literature but in all the places where power is held.
Nye, a dramatisation of the life of Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan, the man responsible for creating Britain's National Health Service (the NHS). The play covers a potted history of his life as he recovers from surgery in hospital that he helped create.
Michael Sheen as Nye wanders through his life in his hospital pyjamas, as his body lies in a morphine-induced post-operative coma. In one scene he is at school being caned for his stutter, in the next he is a union rep fighting for the rights of the miners in his village, and then an MP in the midst of World War II criticising Churchill's leadership.
The play contains some moving scenes - like when Nye's friend takes him to a public library. "I can just take a book down and look at it? and no one will shout at me?" he asks in disbelief. "You can take it home if you want," his friend replies joyfully. We take libraries for granted now but imagine the novelty and importance of a library opening for the first time in a poor community. Imagine what free access to books would mean (education, entertainment).
We also take health for granted now, but the scene where Nye as the newly appointed Health Minister receives pleas for help was shocking as a reminder of how things used to be: communities in the grip of a diphtheria outbreak with no vaccines, hospitals that would not treat patients outside their specialty so any patient with two complaints would bounce between two hospitals without either issue being addressed, and patients in need of surgery who could not afford the required anaesthetic.
I laughed. I cried. I learned some things. I appreciate even more that this man from a Welsh mining community had a vision to expand the medical board in his local community to a national scale to provide free of charge health care at the point of request. What more can you hope for from the theatre experience?
Why I'm Team Anne
I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a teenager, as I was doing an assignment on the Brontë sisters. Jane Eyre, sure. Wuthering Heights, whatever. But The Tenant? Wow. It shook me. The depiction of domestic violence was shocking but more so considering the time it was written. The notion of what this woman had to do to escape her marriage. The idea that women were property, 'sold' to their husbands and with no legal or political rights of their own. I was shocked. Was this novel formative in any feminist feelings I have? Probably. At the same time, I acknowledge that women in situations of domestic violence still find it difficult to escape their abusers, so how much has changed in 150 years?
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