You wouldn't think that religious controversy would make for a fun night out at the theatre.  Take  The Blasphemer for instance, a play I saw some years ago about Thomas Aikenhead the student executed in Edinburgh in 1697 for ridiculing christianity probably while he was in his cups.  It was one of  George Rosie and Fifth Estate's fine contributions to Scottish theatre but it was not a bundle of laughs.

Not so Anne Boleyn currently passing through Edinburgh on a UK tour. In many ways it's more like a pantomime than a play including as it does knockabout humour, songs and interaction with the audience.  The  actress playing Anne would have made an excellent principal boy if they'd only given her a pair of thigh-length boots.  The portrayal of James VIth and Ist (you'll gather there's a bit of time twisting to bring him into the act) is very much a hyperbolic pantomime performance, dreadfully funny but perhaps overegging his sobriquet as the wisest fool in Christendom.

It is an impressively clever script that gets across the arguments of the day concisely and effortlessly but, for me at least, with almost no emotional impact.  Given the fact that people burnt one another at the stake for the sake of the ideas being expressed I can't say that however much I enjoyed the entertainment the play succeeded as drama.

There was no particular tension built up as events unfolded either by the clash of ideas or personalities and at the end despite the enormity of the betrayals and counter betrayals I didn't give a toss about poor Anne having her head chopped off.  Thomas Aikenhead's misfortune affected me much more.