The creator of Channel 5 psychological thriller Anne Boleyn has revealed that she’s feeling the “pressure” ahead of her reimagining of the ill-fated queen, who was beheaded in 1536 on the orders of her husband Henry VIII.
Asked whether she felt any sense of pressure or responsibility ahead of the series, screenwriter Eve Hedderwick Turner told RadioTimes.com exclusively that she hoped her scripts had done Anne “justice”.
“I think you’re totally right about the pressure,” she said. “I actually live in Deptford, which is just up the road from Greenwich and sort of the site where Greenwich Palace was, and I quite often go for runs or walk along the river there and think about the moment where she would have been loaded onto the barge and taken to the Tower [of London]. And I do, yeah, I feel sort of quite moved whenever I think about [her] and think, ‘God, I hope I’m doing you [Anne Boleyn] justice’.”
The three-part series, starring Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne in the Anne Boleyn cast, is set to re-examine Anne Boleyn’s downfall, legacy, and final five months through a feminist lens.
Hedderwick Turner revealed she already had a “geeky” interest in the Tudors when producers Fable Pictures approached her about a potential project.
“I’ve always had a bit of a geeky interest in the Tudors. So, definitely a reader of the Philippa Gregory novels as a teenager, [I] loved all the kind of drama and intrigue, it was quite sexy,” she said. “I immediately had an interest when Fable approached me and said, ‘Look we’re thinking about doing something about Anne Boleyn – what would be your take?'”
She explained that she was keen to move away from previous depictions of Anne as a “bit player” in the story of the Tudor court, instead making her the “protagonist in her own story”.
“Immediately, the thing that struck me was that often, she’s a sort of bit player in the larger dynamics and story of the court. And I felt like this was an opportunity to really kind of focus in on her experience of what went on and really explore a subjective narrative, [to] just stick really close on her shoulder and see how frightening this sort of situation would have been from her point of view, and I guess a chance to shift focus and put the lens on her, [and] make her the protagonist in her own story,” she said.
Want more show content? Check out our location guide to where Anne Boleyn was filmed.
Anne Boleyn is set to air on Channel 5 from Tuesday 1st June at 9pm. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide. Visit our Drama hub for all the latest news.
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