Brilliant siblings in the machine of power
Having grown up in Portsmouth and now living in Brighton, Ben Jones says performing at Chichester Festival Theatre has always been on his bucket list.
He gets to tick it off as he steps into the shoes of Thomas Boleyn, father of Anne and Mary,inthetudorepictheother Boleyn Girl which opens the 2024seasononthemain-house stage. Mike Poulton’s adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel runs until Saturday, May 11.
“Iamfromportsmouthoriginally. My dad was in the Royal Navy. He was chaplain to the dockyard when I was very little so I grew up in the dockyard in Portsmouth. It was a good address but it was quite difficult getting in and out! But the first show I remember seeing as a boy was in Chichester and it must have been when I was aboutsixorsevenandiremember being absolutely mesmerised. It was called The Selfish Shellfish... which is quite a vocal warm-up in itself!”
Asfortheotherboleyngirl, Ben, who has lived in Brighton for the past eight years or so, is relishingallthechallengesthat Thomasboleynoffers,notleast the burning question whether heisabaddieornot:“that'sone of the things I have struggled with. As an actor you always try to find something human and to be sympathetic about the character you're playing or else it just becomes a bit arch, buthistoryhasnotbeenkindto Thomasboleyn.thewordpimp isthewordusedinthebookand yes, you could certainly look at it like that. I suppose the point is that we try to draw modern equivalents and you can look and see him as the equivalent of new money being highly ambitious and just desperate to get to the top position. My job is to find a way into that humancharacter.here'sthisman whowantstobeacceptedbythe nobility and perhaps he has a God-given duty to get the best position he can in his life. But no,historyhasnotbeenkindto himandihavetolookatthetext thatmikehasproducedandtry to work my way through to find whateveritisabouthisrelationship with his children. You've gottolinkintothetudormindset and realise that perhaps it's not so unusual for parenting to be so unattached. You have to realise that probably nobody else would be quite so shocked thatthomasboleynistryingto push his daughters into the eye of the king so that he might get another castle. You can sense the modern audience will feel shocked that he is trying to commodify his children but it was perhaps not so shocking in the court of Henry VIII which wasallaboutpower.andpower is very human. Horrible Histories have done a brilliant job of bringing Henry VIII alive and we all remember his wives and how he beheaded two of them and how he worked his way throughthematarateofknots, but the facts are so much more complexthanthat.hewasvery conscious of his mortal soul.”
With Thomas Boleyn too, it was complex: “There is a struggle with his conscience. It makes it more interesting dramatically to have a struggle than to just have this character asconsciencefreeasheuseshis children, but what makes it interesting is when the children resist. You've got these three brilliant siblings who care for eachotherdeeplybutarehugely competitive in this great machine of power.”