The Last Wife

This contemporary telling of Henry VIII’s sixth, surviving wife, Katherine Parr, requires a vertigo-inducing suspension of belief.

Loosely based on historical fact, Kate Hennig’s family of royal characters – with young Edward, Elizabeth and Mary all waiting to rule after the old king – squabble and banter around Parr in an idiom and modern dress more akin to American TV.  

Hennig’s Katherine meanwhile handles the brooding tyrant by keeping a new world feminism only just at bay, when, in reality and more interestingly, it was her new religious radicalism which almost caused her downfall.

And yet, as directed by Mark Kilmurry, Hennig’s dialogue bristles with pace and wit, and the pragmatic marital bargaining of Henry and his last wife is entertaining, despite its slim verisimilitude. And two fine performances help. 

Ben Wood’s Henry is an Aussie bloke, an unpredictable mix of charm and threat, off to a last fling in France to prove himself in battle; while Nikki Shiels is an elegant intelligent Parr, an able Regent too, who looks great in cocktail dresses.

The famously dysfunctional Tudor family does suggest some modern truths, with Emma Harvie as enthusiastic Young Bess (a ringer for Gladys Berejiklian), Bishanyia Vincent as droll Mary and Emma Chelsey overplaying the spoilt male heir, Edward.  Simon London is the boy’s uncle, Thomas Seymour, who lurks dangerously as Parr’s true love.

Two giant portraits of Princesses Mary and Elizabeth dominate Simone Romaniuk’s set and, in between, the marital bed on which Parr negotiates their security and also her own.

The play is overlong but still delightful for historical tragics like me who daydream what these monarchs were really like. But I’m sure they weren’t too much like this.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Phil Erbacher