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EDITORIAL - herts.advertiser@archant.co.uk
03 March 2005
BRING the six wives of Henry VIII into the present day and what do you get - apart from a shared dislike of all things ginger.
There is plenty more than just that to admire in The Regina Monologues, a new play from Rebecca Russell and Jenny Wafer for Tidemark Theatre which took the audience by storm in St Albans last Friday.
With a title which is a clever variant on The Vagina Monologues, the play looks at what might have happened if the amorous adventures of a ginger-haired chap called Henry had taken place in the 21st century.
It is a richly-comic idea and the two authors tap its potential for all it's worth.
The result is an extremely funny play which becomes progressively darker until bursting back into the sunlight again with a witty finale.
Even in some of its gloomiest moments, the pathos is lightened by comedy although the fate of two of the wives - Jane and Katie - is beyond such rescue. Co-author Rebecca Russell takes the role of Cathy, aka Catherine of Aragon, who marries the golden god which was Henry as a young man before being cast aside for Anna MacLeod's voluptuous Anna.
Both women have cause to regret ever meeting Henry and have some of the funniest lines as they mull over their time with him.
The demure Jane is played as sheer saccharine by Chrystalla Spire until she realises she is loved for what she can provide rather than for herself.
Julie Grant gives the comic performance of the play as Anna - aka Ann of Cleves - who meets Henry through a computer dating service.
Louisa Stevens is the ingenue Katie - Katherine Howard - who is sacrificed to the fat and ageing Henry, while Tina Swain makes a marvellous dominatrix as Katherine, Henry's final wife Katherine Parr.
The Regina Monologues is a brilliantly-conceived play which takes every opportunity to have a dig at men, particularly ginger ones, but which the men in the audience at the Maltings Arts Theatre laughed at as wholeheartedly as the women.
It is being performed again at the end of July in the Abbey Theatre, St Albans, before moving to the Edinburgh Fringe. Further details are on the website www.tidemark.co.uk
MADELEINE BURTON
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