Jennifer to the power of Six as Henry's queens descend on Chichester

In the show, the six wives of Henry VIII turn pop princesses to take to the mic to tell their tales, remixing five hundred years of historical heartbreak into an 80-minute celebration of 21st century girl power. It plays Chichester Festival Theatre from November 22-27.

“It's an amazing show,” Jennifer says. “I have been with it for just over three years though obviously we did have a 15-month break for Covid. I started the show in 2019 as the alternate for Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and I covered the other four and I actually went on to play all of the queens. I still know all of the parts. The other day we were warming up and someone said ‘Can you jump in and for Cleeves?’ and I just did it. I was surprised how much I remembered. But actually it's a growing number of people that have played all six. We've got a big fanbase for the show and they call us swingo like bingo when you've done all of them. I don't know how many swingos there are but it is lovely to be one of them.

“I love all of the queens but I do think I have a special connection for Anne Boleyn. She is amazing. She's the one that I've met played most and she's just so much fun. She's just so much fun and dramatic to play. Society has this preconceived idea of her as a sultry and seductive temptress and I love subverting that straight away. I play her a little bit on the surface as a bit ditzy and a little bit silly but I do think she's got all these layers to her, that she is very intelligent and witty. She plays the game... though she doesn't play it very well at the end, you could say! But she is a very intelligent, very educated woman. She is steered by her family to make the choices she does. The family wants to better their situation and her situation and she plays the game by being witty and charming and maybe withholding what the king is actually wanting. I think the relationship she had with Henry before they got married was very playful but once they've got married something switches and he becomes very angry and very bored very quickly.”

And Jennifer does points out there is actually no proof of Ann Bolyn’s adultery.

Jennifer was alternate and swing at the time of the pandemic: “We had just finished in Wolverhampton and we were on our way to do the show in Brighton. Our company manager said ‘If you are already in Brighton, then go home and if you are not in Brighton already, then don't leave home.’

"He told us we were going to close and it ended up being 15 months. Our producers were wonderful. They tried so many different ways to get us to open but couldn’t"

And so it was more than a year before they went back on the stage – and with a changed appreciation: “There might be days now when you're tired but you've just got to really think back to 2020 and realise how low I was and how low I think a lot of my colleagues were and how much we just wanted to get back to work. I'm so grateful to be part of such a great show.”