Forthcoming

Check back for details of re-scheduled performance.

Mary’s Hand is a new music drama about the life and reign of Queen Mary I –  Bloody Mary, as we think we know her. Hear history re-told by the Queen herself as she shares a game of cards with the audience.

It’s a little-known fact that Mary loved games of chance, such as dice and cards. In Mary’s Hand the turn of the next card prompts the Queen to reflect on the influences and events in her life: her father Henry VIII, her mother Katherine of Aragon, her religion, her half-sister Elizabeth I, and her desperate desire for a child are all represented in the deck she holds.

Mary was chiefly driven by the wish to be a good monarch and her conviction that re-uniting England with Catholic Europe would secure her own – and her kingdom’s – future. Her marriage to Philip of Spain promised to fulfil both these desires, but Mary paid a high public and personal price for her choices.

With words and direction by Di Sherlock and music by Martin Bussey, Mary’s Hand is performed by mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin and chamber ensemble.