Brexit parallels in A Man for All Seasons - Chichester dates
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
It plays Chichester Festival Theatre from January 28-February 1 and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford from February 25-March 1.
Martin Shaw is Sir Thomas More in the production – scholar, ambassador, Lord Chancellor and friend to King Henry VIII. Above all, he is a man of integrity, loved by the common people and his own family. When Henry demands a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, clearing the way for him to marry Anne Boleyn, the staunchly Catholic Thomas is forced to choose between his loyalty and his own conscience, committing an act of defiance for which he eventually pays the ultimate price…
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Hide Ad“I'm still in the middle of rehearsals at the moment,” says Gary, “so I am just beginning to work out why it is such a great play and I think it's the fact that it gives such great opportunities for performers to shine and it is just so brilliantly written. And it's an area that we are all so interested in. The costume designer was joking that he didn't need to do much research. He just needed to watch Wolf Hall. But really it is about that chance to shine.
“It is a period piece but I didn't realise until I read it just how much it reminds me of Brexit in a funny way. It is a religious thing of course but if you see Rome and the Vatican as being Europe then you've got someone who comes along and says, like Nigel Farage, that it is time to change and to break away and to form your own church and to call it the Church of England.
“The people of the country have been told that Rome was the way to go for a long time but now all of a sudden they have someone telling them that it's not and you can imagine the confusion in the minds of the people. They've been told that something is the right thing to do and we know how powerful religion is. It's a form of brainwashing. You're told this is what you do and believe in God and do it. Obviously it is different in that respect but I do think that parallel with Brexit is there.”
There is also a parallel with Me And My Girl which Gary so famously did 35 years or so ago: “One thing that came out of that is you've got this young man who is told that he is the new Earl and he has to change his ways and become a member of the aristocracy but he is actually the one person that remains constant while everyone around him changes. And I think Sir Thomas More is a little bit like that in that he remains true to his beliefs. Everyone else because of Henry VIII is trying to change the rules and move the goal posts but Sir Thomas More is the one that stays true. He is a man of principle but obviously he is also a spanner in the works. They're going to have to get around him. They can't kill him like they usually do. There is so much to be gained from getting him on their side, so they think, but obviously as we know it doesn't work out like that...”
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