Poole is sizzling

“As in the two earlier plays in the cycle, The Last Wife and The Virgin Trial, Hennig’s use of colloquial language brings Tudor history delightfully down to earth. Sometimes she overdoes it. Calling children “kids” is one thing, but hearing the expression “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge” sounds silly in any context.

The actors, however, fully inhabit their characters. Taylor makes her journey from unlikely monarch to hard realist convincing and sympathetic, while Poole is sizzling as Catalina – an idea emphasized by Kimberly Purtell’s lighting and Debashis Sinha’s sound design.”