Lyn Gardner Interviews Liv Hill as 1536 Transfers to the West End
Published on 28 April 2026
When actress Liv Hill first read Ava Pickett’s 1536, which arrives at the Ambassadors Theatre this week, she says she was shocked by its vividness and that while "it's about three young women living a long time ago", it feels “just so completely contemporary, so relatable".
“It was a genuine shock but not in a ‘this feels so wrong’ way but in a ‘this feels so right’ way. I had always thought of historical dramas as being a bit stiff and full of Shakespearean language and detached from the way we live today. But this is a history play where the way it’s written and the emotions it covers just feel so very current. I remember thinking as I read it, I could have been one of these women back in the day.”
That’s what it feels like for those watching it too, which is part of the cleverness which has contributed to its success and this West End transfer from the Almeida. Hill relates the play back to those three into two won’t go female friendships of her teenage years which most women experience, "where the dynamic is uneven. They love each other dearly, but the balance in the friendship tips one way then another throughout.” Part of the rising tension of the drama is whether this long-held friendship can survive ever-darkening external forces.
Written by rising star Ava Pickett, whose Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy opens at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in the autumn and who is the screenwriter on Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Joan of Arc, 1536 is set in the year when Queen Anne Boleyn was imprisoned in the Tower by her husband Henry VIII, found guilty of treason and had her head chopped off.
But while events in London loom large over the action, 1536 is set in a field in Essex, a place where three young women, childhood friends, regularly meet to gossip and mull over their daily lives. One is Anna, who is beautiful, desired by men and unashamedly sexual; another is local midwife Mariella, whose great love has married another woman. Hill plays Jane, a naïve, gawky young woman who can’t even remember the name of the king whose actions far away in London will impact these young women so remote from the seat of power.
“There is such a disturbing complexity to Jane,” says Hill, “because she is incredibly funny and sweet, but she has this dark streak too. She can be really ruthless, and all the choices she makes in the play arise from fear, and then towards the end of the play you start to see what those choices cost her in terms of her friendship with Anna and Mariella, her own spirit and her sense of self.”
Hill, who was only 16 when she was nominated for a BAFTA for her role in Three Girls, the BBC series based on the Rochdale child abuse ring, has made her mark on theatre over the last few years. She played Angie in the National Theatre’s revival of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and in 2024 was memorable as Paige, a young woman who has been sexually assaulted, in Kendall Feaver’s Alma Mater, a play which, like 1536, exposes the way patriarchal power operates and women are judged by entirely different standards than men. Hill recalls 1536’s director, Lyndsey Turner, saying during one rehearsal that “there are no winners in a patriarchal society". Certainly no female ones.
With the names of Anna and Jane echoing their namesakes Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour-- the quiet, dutiful wife whom Henry married just 11 days after Anne’s execution and who died in childbirth-- this racy thriller operates with a clever duality which is constantly reminding us of the here and there, the now and the then, and allowing us to make the connections and see the parallels. Some events of recent years, including the rise of the trad wife, the limitations on abortion rights, and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which so scarily demonstrates the attitudes of men in power towards young women, make it seem even more on the money.
“When we did it at the Almeida last year, it felt so relevant, but a year later it feels even more so,” says Hill. “I really believe that all art is political, but this play feels as if it is reflecting what is happening now all around the world. One of the things that playing Jane has done is that it has made me braver as a person. Jane is so afraid all the time that she won’t put her head above the parapet. She just moves with society and doesn’t question authority. So, it is a play that makes me feel that I have to be braver in my life than Jane around the choices I make and what I say. Because Jane may be one of the world’s survivors, but she is not a winner in any way."
1536 plays at the Ambassadors Theatre until Sat 1 August 2026. Book your tickets today.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.