An Audience with Henry VIII

Continuing with this month's massive injection of culture via Brighton Fringe, I went to see another play yesterday evening, this time with my Dad.

We saw An Audience with Henry VIII at The Lantern Theatre, a one man play performed by Ross Gurney-Randall.

I really enjoyed this play and would watch again if I had the chance!

The premise of the play is that King Henry VIII has been dead for 468 years, and is still waiting to meet God. But God is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Henry has the audience, to whom he tells his story. He boasts, he grumbles, he laments, he shouts...occasionally interrupted by an infernal imp playing Greensleeves. The music maddens him--he didn't write it, he hates it, and it's there everywhere he goes!

Within his speech, Henry rattles off a list of some of the notable figures he bumped off, and gives reasons why the wives had to go. Also, he insists, he definitely did not have syphilis.

The show ends with Henry storming off into another room of his own personal purgatory, shouting for whoever is playing Greensleeves to shut up.

The pompous, boastful, short-tempered attitude of Ross Gurney-Randall's Henry VIII was a brilliant characterisation of England's most notorious king, with excellently-delivered lines that really made me chuckle.

Written by Ross Gurney-Randall and Pete Howells, An Audience with Henry VIII was a great show and very amusing, filled with little historical factlets--why don't they teach history like this?

If you're hankering after a little comedic Henry VIII, you can find out more information and get tickets on the Brighton Fringe website. The 30th May show is sold out, but there are tickets left for the 27th!