Having grown up in Portsmouth and now living in Brighton, Ben Jones says performing at Chichester Festival Theatre has always been on his bucket list.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Heward, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, and I can't
00:06remember the opening show at Chichester Festival Theatre in recent years creating such a buzz
00:10as The Other Boleyn Girl is. There is such excitement around the show, and lovely to
00:15speak to Ben Jones. You are a key part of that Tudor court, and it's a very difficult
00:23place, isn't it? A very ambitious place, a very ruthless place, and you are part of
00:28that ambition as the father to Anne and Mary Boleyn, aren't you? Absolutely. I mean, historically,
00:35you know, at the head of that ambition for Anne and Mary Boleyn, what the play explores
00:42is the complexities of that ambition and where exactly it comes from. The Boleyns, Thomas
00:48Boleyn, comes from a line, really, of trade money, new money, not landed, not titled,
00:56and his ambitions are to join the ranks of the highest of the court, the inner privy
01:01circle, the earls and the dukes. And he's brother-in-law, of course, to the Duke of
01:07Norfolk, who is extremely powerful and one of the old families. And it's interesting
01:14to play with that dynamic of how the landed feel about, ostensibly, the new money. The
01:23Boleyns were very, very wealthy.
01:25History hasn't been terribly kind to your character, but you've got to do more than
01:30that. You've got to find something within, haven't you?
01:33I think it's more interesting to do that, Phil. We did a lot of work, all of us, on
01:40researching various histories. And as you say, Thomas doesn't come out incredibly well.
01:47I mean, he is lauded for his incredible skills at language. He spoke several languages and
01:54he was able to converse at the highest level in the courts of France and Spain and the
02:01Netherlands. He was great friends with Margaret of Austria. Erasmus called him an incredibly
02:06learned man, about which he didn't brag, which can't be said for other diplomats like Chapuyt.
02:16You know, so he was incredibly good at his job, but always slightly left out of the really
02:24big things, like the field of the cloth of gold and the things that were really noble.
02:30And I think that must have...
02:31Was he overconfident with you, then, in pushing his...
02:35Perhaps, or he just wasn't from, you know, titled stock. So the ambition was to get that
02:41title. And I think I've explored that in the play. And what history has remembered, as you
02:47referred to, is that he, the unkind bit, is that he deliberately used his children as pawns in that
02:56game. That is certainly a way of looking at it. And I've enjoyed exploring that and finding the
03:03complexities within that. I'm a parent myself. And we talked earlier, didn't we, about, you
03:08know, understanding the differences between modern progressive parenting and the parenting
03:12in the Tudor court, two completely different mindsets. So there would have been things that
03:16would have been taken for granted, like daughters are for marrying well. Otherwise, what are they
03:24for? And it's really hard to get your head around that mentality. But Thomas Boleyn was not alone
03:30in thinking it. You could argue that Thomas Boleyn did not want his daughters in the king's bed.
03:39Because that could actually be ruined. It's a dangerous, dangerous game. You alluded to the
03:45danger of the court. The whole thing is riven with danger. One false move, you know,
03:51literally you're gone. And it must have been a terrifying place to be.
03:57It's a fabulously gripping, exciting start to the summer. Really lovely to speak to you. Thank you
04:02very much for your time. I'm very much looking forward to the production. Thank you.
04:06Thanks, Phil. See you soon.