YOUNG fans of Terry Deary's irreverent Horrible Histories already know our rulers are never to be trusted and they will love The Terrible Tudors, imaginatively adapted for the stage by the author for Birmingham Stage Company.
Anyone unfamiliar wi
th his entertainingly subversive take on history will soon be disabused of any illusions that the Tudors represented something of a golden age.
Against a series of evocative backdrops Dr Dee (versatile Charles Davies), with Dross (Haz Webb, a dead ringer in her fatsuit for Dawn French), Drab (mischevous Gary Wilson) and Ms Tree (prim and proper Jemma Hines) gleefully impersonate all the Tudor monarchs (apart from Edward VI, a limp puppet) together with a host of other colourful characters.
That "nobody messes with a Tudor" was luridly illustrated by the gruesome punishments meted out to criminals by Henry VII. Catholics and Protestants were depicted as baying football supporters waving scarves. The fates of Henry VIII's six wives were memorably summed up in a catchy ditty with gestures Birdie Song style, enthusiastically taken up by the young audience.
Screaming filled the theatre as 3D goggles lent a thrilling dimension to the Spanish Armada and the watery punishment of witches.
The Terrible Tudors runs until Saturday. There is also a Vile Victorians show tomorrow at 7pm and on Saturday at 2 30pm.
The full article contains 228 words and appears in Evening Courier newspaper.
