A Man For All Seasons
Robert Bolt
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions
Lowry, Salford
November 3-7, 2026: 2 hrs 45 mins
So who do you like – or dislike – most, of the three Thomases: More, Cromwell or Cranmer?
Since Hilary Mantel’s wholesale rewrite of Tudor history in Wolf Hall, there may be those who feel that Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s hatchet man, has had a bit of a bad press.
And Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, author of some of the most beautiful prayers written in the English language, seems to get a raw deal too, from those who see him as a kind of 16th Century Quisling.
But what about Thomas More, the lawyer who rose to be Henry’s Lord Chancellor, but finished with his head on the block? He is the only one who has been made a saint (albeit less than a century ago, and with a qualifying papal pronouncement that his attitude to “heretics” was limited by the concepts of his time)?
Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, made into a multiple-Oscar-winning film in 1966, puts him firmly on the side of the angels (by contrast, Hilary Mantel calls him a “dessicated fanatic”). Not just because of his faithfulness to his Catholic beliefs, but as a man who put his conscience above everything.
Back in the day, Paul Scofield made a hit of playing him on stage and in the film, and Martin Shaw (known as Judge John Deed, Inspector George Gently and many other portrayals of a courageous man of integrity) took the role in this production’s first outing around 20 years ago, and is still doing so in this revival. He has made the character age over time, with a shock of white hair now, and still projects the air of modest dignity and authority – what Erasmus called More’s “imperiousness” – that has to be the essence of creating him as a sympathetic character.
Jonathan Church’s production boasts a fine set by Simon Higlett and gloomily atmospheric lighting by Mark Henderson – high and narrow in proscenium shape, which I guess is down to its origins at Bath Theatre Royal, though the evocation of outdoor scenes by having the actors carry on a couple of plastic-looking small shrubs is minimalistic, to say the least.
But, nearing the end of a second provincial run with a West End season tucked in-between, I had the feeling the actors are getting rather bored by it. There is a lot of lawyerly debate to be heard, after all, in the stage version, and its Everyman figure, appearing as various servants; then More’s jailer and finally hangman, who keeps talking directly to the audience (dropped in the film), doesn’t do a lot to lighten things, despite Paul Kemp’s best efforts.
Sam Phillips makes Thomas Cromwell a thoroughgoing creep (could there have been room for a little post-Mantel subtlety there?), and Chris Larkin’s Lord Norfolk is a kind of innocent abroad, with Sam Parks’ Cranmer an unbending bigot. Towards the end it gets rather shouty, as if they realise there should be some tension building, but don’t know how to make it happen.
Polly Kemp’s Alice More (Thomas’s wife), Grace Molony as his daughter Margaret, and Peter Losasso as Richard Rich are worthy if less than colourful; Asif Khan goes a bit over the top in funny-foreigner mode as Signor Chapuys, and Orlando James struts as Henry VIII without completely catching the psychopath lurking beneath. Nicholas Day can hardly compete with the unforgettably obese Cardinal Wolsey created by Orson Welles for the film (surely the model for Jabba the Hutt?).
In the end, I’m with Erasmus when it comes to More. Erasmus – an unassailably Good Egg in the era of the “New Learning” – liked him so much that his In Praise of Folly satire’s title is a Latin pun on his name (Encomium Moriae). You can’t get much more sincere than that.
More info and tickets here
