Margot Robbie has become a co-producer of 1536 as the Tudor-set play moves to the West End, giving fresh star power to a production that has already built serious momentum in London. The play, written by Ava Pickett, is now running at the Ambassadors Theatre after opening at the Almeida last year.

Robbie said she first heard about the project years ago, when it was only a script. “And everyone was telling me I’d be obsessed with it, and they were right,” she said. The actor and producer, 32, added: “It’s set in 1536 but the conversations these women have are the same ones that women now are having.” She also said: “I feel like I’m friends with these women and I know them.”

The production centres on three working-class women in Essex — played by Tanya Reynolds, Siena Kelly and Liv Hill — as rumours spread that Anne Boleyn is about to be executed. That choice of focus has helped set 1536 apart from the usual Tudor dramas, which often stay close to royalty and court intrigue. Instead, Pickett’s play looks at the world from below, through ordinary lives shaped by fear, gossip and the rules around female sexuality.

Its move to the West End follows a strong reception at the Almeida, where the play opened last year. The Times said the hype around it was justified, calling it a feminist drama that exposes a rigged system that prizes and punishes female sexuality. It also singled out Hill, Kelly and Reynolds as stars in the making. Hill said the play made the period feel immediate rather than distant, adding: “I hated history at school because it felt very dry, but this play makes the Tudor era feel so relevant and relatable so these girls could be girls from 2026.”

The transfer matters because 1536 is arriving in the West End with more than stage heat behind it. The play has already been commissioned by the as an eight-part drama series adaptation, extending the reach of Pickett’s work far beyond the theatre. Pickett is also now co-writing Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming Joan of Arc film, Jehanne d'Arc, after the play helped establish her as one of the most closely watched new writers around.

The story behind the production also explains why it has connected so quickly. Pickett was inspired by conversations with friends about violence against women and the anxieties women share in private, and those themes run through the play’s Essex setting. Set in 1536, as rumours swirl about Anne Boleyn’s fate, it asks what women say to one another when the world around them is built to ignore them. Robbie’s backing suggests the answer has found an audience well beyond history fans: this is a play about the past that lands squarely in the present.