1536

by Ava Pickett

'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. Closer to home, another rumour threatens to catch fire.

As these women realise the parallels between their ordinary, rural lives and the royal drama taking place at a distance, they are faced with several choices, all of which end in violence.

Ava Pickett's play 1536 is a fiendishly smart and funny drama which asks whether female solidarity can survive in a world where barbarism and misogyny are state sanctioned.

It was commended by the George Devine Award, won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2025, directed by Lyndsey Turner.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Historical Fiction, Drama, Fiction

133 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 21, 2026

Reviews

[Doug]

2nd time round review:

This DID merit a reread, although it took me longer to get through it (life intervened!). I noticed more nuances and knowing what happens I could see some great subtle foreshadowing. No doubt, Pickett is the real deal and am eagerly awaiting what she'll do next.

OG review: 5+ stars!!

Believe the hype - I haven't been as blown away by a debut play since the first time I read Lucy Kirkwood, whom Pickett bears more than a little resemblance to in her writing - and whom I suspect will have as long and illustrious career as well. Not surprisingly, they both won the prestigious Susan Blackburn Award for their first efforts.

After a sold-out premiere at the Almeida in May 2025, this play has just reopened in the West End to thunderous reviews, with Margot Robbie as one of the lead producers, no less (she called it 'the best play I've ever read'!)- and tickets are not only scarce again but going for insane amounts (we're talking over $1000!!).

It's a stunning work of theatrical imagination, detailing the lives of three typical young women in a nameless village in Essex in the titular year, beginning at the time of the rumored arrest of Anne Boleyn, and moving forwards to her eventual beheading.

The uncanny parallels to today's society and how insidiously misogyny, gossip, fake news, and political power can destroy lives is just as timely now as it was back then but is invoked without hitting one over the head in an obvious fashion.

Luckily, BBC has already picked it up for a television adaptation, hopefully with the original cast intact, since I won't be able to see it in London. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainme...]

But now, you'll excuse me, as I need to immediately reread it to catch all the nuances and try to fathom out just how Ms. Pickett worked her magic...

I've already ordered two other scripts that she's written since - adaptations of Austen's Emma and Blakemore's The Manningtree Witches and eagerly await the publication of a forthcoming play about Helen of Troy (Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy).

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[Natalia]

Amazing! I wish I saw it on stage!

[Eliza]

Phenomenal! Awards, awards, give it all the awards!!!!

[Freddy]

5- Sensational stuff !!!!!!!!!!

[Ica]

Chillar galet med slutet. Intressanta karaktärer. Story snyggt byggd runt ett event. Good stuff.

[Gabrii_i7]

"Asking a question ain’t sinful Jane. What’s sinful is the state of your fucking hair mate."

Qué pasa con las obras de teatro inglesas últimamente (me he leído solo 2 y una era de 2010, pero me apetece generalizar) que te las venden como comedia y luego te golpean con el impacto de las insalvables dinámicas sociales que explotan al grupo menos favorecido cual martillo. Voy a rumiar bastante sobre la obra, ojalá encontrar ensayos y tal (que no se me está logrando ahora mismo).

"Just because it wasn’t taken by violence doesn’t mean it wasn’t taken."

"I am just trying to be good." "How can you be when they keep changing what the definition is?"

[Sophia Woodward]

Holy hell so good.

[Noura]

Utterly phenomenal

[Zizi Franses]

A perfect play? Funny, meaningful, contemporary yet also wonderfully historical, important. Ava Pickett is a revelation.

[Hen]

Good!! Tense!!

[Jo Rich]

Fingers crossed for a NYC transfer - this is a goosebump week changing read

[Millie Potter]

Absolutely phenomenal, such a tense, witty, incredible piece of theatre! Would love to see this live!

[Ruby Loftus]

Re read. Just as brilliant as when I saw it on stage. So funny, so tender, so impactful. Everyone should read this play

[amoona]

Brilliant !!!!!

[Barney Herrin]

Great writing

[Ana]

1536 fizzles and pops with drama, tension and copious amounts of humour, all underscored by very sinister happenings in London, a not-so-distant turbulence that slowly permeates the surrounding English counties. I found this play to be so witty and imbued with so much vigour that is solidified by the modern dialogue. The parallels between 16th century patriarchal authoritarianism and politics of the now is unflinching.

I audibly gasped more than once. A fantastic journey through love, friendship, protection, grief, loss and revelations.

[Natalie T.]

Absolutely stunning, riveting new play left me shaking and astounded by its power . . . and I read it in the Kindle version, mesmerized and unable to stop until I finished it. It's hard to imagine a less hospitable environment for giving a play its due, and 1536 still wrecked me, both for its immediate story and its mirror-like reflection of our current gone-mad-with-misogyny moment. Seen in a theater with these characters embodied by great actors, 1536 must slam the audience like HAMLET; I hope some day I have the good fortune to witness that.

1536 takes place in a small English town in that calendar year, and follows three young women as they try to assimilate the news that King Henry VIII has turned against his Queen, Anne Boleyn, and placed her under arrest in the Tower. How could such a thing be possible? She's the Queen! And Henry had moved heaven and earth to make her so . . . surely it's a crazy rumor. A mistake of some kind. She's probably back on her throne by now. But as the hot summer wears on, the news gets worse, and even in Essex women find their lives changing, freedoms vanishing, men becoming ever more belligerent as they follow the King's lead.

Sheer brilliance of a particularly rare kind: Ava Pickett is already a great playwright.

[Amanda Fiorani]

Brilliant! I had been dying to read 1536, and it did not disappoint.

Anna: Has it always been like this?
Mariella: I don't know.
Anna: Will it always be like this?
Mariella: I don't know.

1536 is about women living in a world of men; women in the Tudor era, women today, and women throughout history. It is centred on Anna, Jane, and Mariella, friends who live in a rural village in the Tudor period. 1536 is a pivotal year for England and for women, given it is when Queen Anne Boleyn is accused of treason and is later decapitated for it. One of the play's very first scenes brings news that the Queen has been arrested, so we follow these women's lives, while the events in London have ripple effects in this place that once seemed so removed from the world of the monarchs.

I loved it! It is a play about the Tudor period, but it is also about today and the feminicides and violence targeting women, without needing to make the connection explicit. It discusses how the actions of those in power enable others to do the same, and the violent masculinity that is present today, but has been around for centuries.

I cannot wait to watch the play later this year, but I'm glad I made the time to read it beforehand.

[Chloe Jannelli]

Wow finished in a day, such good writing, was waiting for my monologue to appear but turns out they cut from the final production? this is the 2026 version and the 2025 had it. So interesting how I had slightly interpreted it differently but it actually is touching on something else that's even more interesting.

But this is a brilliant play on the Madonna/Whore construct, I read some feeling nauseous on the bus but couldn't stop but some parts of it did feel so nauseating because yes this is tudor England, but also England today.

This story from high school which always comes back to me. To not be believed... Good reference here.

[Jake]

“Just cos it wasn’t taken by violence doesn’t mean it wasn’t taken”

This show just recently opened on the West End and it caught my attention pretty easily. Produced by Margot Robbie and the setting/content feels like a mashup of Six the Musical and John Proctor Is the Villain. It’s not as funny as those two (although maybe it is seeing it staged) but I really liked how the framing lets you into this friend(?) group and see how women at the time (and now) often find camaraderie and simultaneous opposition with each other as a reaction to the social norms.

[zoe]

really strong! there are a lot of elements here that i enjoyed. first and foremost, the three women in this are fantastic. like pickett said in her author's note, i loved them all too. i was very taken by their humor, their individuality, and how real they all felt.

something about the ending didn't hit me as much as i wanted it to. it was the only natural conclusion, yet i found myself wanting more out of it. i'm sure it hits different live.

i'm certain we'll see this play pop up more in the future. i hope to see it live one day!

[Chloë Jackson]

good play but like idk i know some people need feminism 101 but i do not! and i like cant rly be assed to care about the persecution of white women in england? i think it was incredibly well written and deep and nuanced and ALSO IN ADDITION things ive already read before. like yeah men can kill their wives. women can be distracted by the illusion of love. but this is all hetero bullshit like im sorry to be tired of hetero bullshit. idfk man good play i guess just stop bringing hetero bull to my office. 3.5 stars

[morgansbooknook]

WOW.

crazy, chaos, history, gossip, sex, gender inequality, feminism, fighting, blood, and plot twists.

so much happened and i am jaw dropped by the last couple scenes. some great and strong storyline and characters. i don’t love all the hooking up stuff in plays but like it makes sense for the storyline and some needed to be seen for the crucial parts.

also i’d like to mention im currently in a very mixed mood. i have so much too memorize (which i should probably do), but i just want to read plays and books 😞, so much homework, and no time.

[Ben Greenwood]

Ben Reads Plays #9

This was sooo cool!! The modern gossipy way they speak is so fun and really sweeps you up into it. But it’s also so masterful in making sure you’re aware of how desperately important this ‘gossip’ really is. Every scene is important and sets up dominoes that are all knocked down in the last unbelievable whirlwind of a scene that builds like crazy.

[anagha]

objectively brilliant! read the first half before watching the play... it started so comedic, so the plot veering into darkness and the really visceral violence against women crashed into me like a train. well written but anxiety inducing for sure.

already been feeling quite doom and gloom lately, so wish I could experience some feminist literature that’s a bit more hopeful.

[Harry McDonald]

I was saving this until I saw it - which I have finally managed to do. It's a thrilling, swaggering, vicious and really fucking funny play. It's a smash hit and it deserves to be.

Also - the ending in my edition (from the initial Almeida run) has a very different ending to the one on-stage. The one on-stage is better. But so interesting to see how it has shifted.

[Tamara]

Eerily relevant. The way Pickett turns up the tension and makes this feel closer and closer to modern days the longer it continues is so impressive. The start is funny and witty, the ending genuinely scary

[liza mayley]

utter breath of fresh air, fave contemporary play ive read
every line can be fraught with meaning, both disgusting and delicious, ava pickett knows exactly what she wants and executes it top bananas

[Johno]

A revelation

[Kitty Kemp-Welch]

My definition of success is being able to write this brilliantly/ acting in a play this phenomenal. Ava Pickett is the 2020’s Princess Diana.