HALF A MILLENNIUM APART: WEST END'S ANNE BOLEYN MEETS HER 1583 LIKENESS

On the eve of the opening of a major new exhibition, the actress who currently portrays Anne Boleyn in the West End stepped into the ill-fated Queen’s childhood home of Hever Castle, to come face-to-face with one of her earliest surviving images.

Thảo Therese Nguyễn, who currently plays Anne Boleyn in the hit West End musical Six, had a sneak peak of the newly re-dated Hever ‘Rose’ portrait at Hever Castle, ahead of the exhibition’s opening on Wednesday 11 February. Painted in 1583, the Hever 'Rose' portrait is one of the very few likenesses to depict Anne’s hands, and a ground-breaking new exhibition argues it was probably painted this way to disprove the idea she was a witch, and to prove she had five digits. 

The portrait features in Hever Castle's Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn, a landmark exhibition bringing together over 30 likenesses and depictions of Anne from the 16th century to the present day.

Dressed in her striking Six the Musical costume, Thảo Therese Nguyễn was there to see the curatorial team hang the 16th-century portrait ahead of the exhibition that seeks to explore how Anne Boleyn’s likeness has been continually re-imagined over time by politics, art, fashion, and popular culture from Tudor portraits to modern interpretations on stage and screen.  

Two women separated by 500 years yet bound by one of history’s most powerful stories.

Thảo Therese Nguyễn said: “Standing in Anne Boleyn’s childhood home, centuries after her death, coming face-to-face with Anne via this set of likenesses, and seeing the amazing Hever ‘Rose’ portrait, was incredibly moving. I play Anne every night on stage but being here at Hever Castle where her story truly began as a child, brought Anne home to me. It felt like meeting her across half a millennium. Meeting her this way via the new exhibition definitely underlined what I knew of Anne and how powerfully her image and her voice still speak to us today.”

The curatorial team at Hever Castle said: “Anne Boleyn has never stopped being re-interpreted. Each generation reshapes her image through its own lens - from her own daughter Elizabeth’s use of her image to writers, directors and actors today who share her through print, literature, film or on stage. This exhibition shows how Anne’s likeness has evolved with the times, and her cultural significance has only grown. Seeing Thảo, a modern Anne, meet her 16th-century image perfectly captures that continuing conversation across history.”

Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn opens on 11 February to the public at Hever Castle in Kent www.hevercastle.co.uk.

Six the Musical is currently playing at the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End. https://sixthemusical.com/london/