Enduring Interests: Tracy Borman speaks to the Boar

Tracy Borman OBE is a historian, broadcaster, and bestselling author. Last June, the Boar sat down with Borman ahead of her new Tutors on Tour theatre tour, bringing together the drama and intrigue of this famous dynasty with sets, props, and visual effects to create a thrilling theatrical experience.

Firstly, this show promises fresh perspectives on familiar stories. Which moments or characters do you think will surprise the audience the most?

What I want to do is take the audience behind closed doors to see the Tudors as they really were. Not their very famous, larger than life public personas, but what they were like as human beings. I think there are going to be some surprises there. For example, Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, is often seen as this grasping miser. And yet, just looking at his household accounts shatters that myth. And likewise, Henry VIII who, when you say that name, you think of a larger than life, dictatorial, tyrant. Yet he was described by somebody who visited him in private as being the most timid man you could hope to meet. I hope to give quite a different perspective on these stereotypical views that we have of the Tudor monarchs.

In 2023, you embarked on a similar theatre tour, ‘How to Be a Good Monarch’. In what way is this tour similar or different to your previous tour?

It’s with the same same theatre company, so in the same way as my first theatre tour, it’s very interactive. There’s film, there’s music, and there’s sound effects. Props are going to play a big part and then there’s me holding it together and taking the audience through the various stories that I’ll be presenting about the Tudors. So there’s lots of things going on, far more than me just standing and talking.

Are there any topics that, as you’ve approached them first in books and documentaries, and now in the creation of this tour, that have changed in how you’ve interpreted them or understood them?

Yes, absolutely. Things come to light all the time so new theories are being developed. I think I’ve certainly changed my opinion about the Boleyns. My new book is on the House of Boleyn and, even though it’s a novel, I did a huge amount of research into that. And that really changed my opinion, because I used to be in the camp that thought the Boleyns were scheming for the crown from the beginning. I don’t think there’s actually any solid evidence for that now. It seems far more likely that neither Anne nor her father wanted this marriage to Henry VIII. And so it was a very different picture of the Boleyns that emerged for me, which I’m grateful for the chance to share in this theatre show.

Your show is focused on the Tudors, a time period that many students across the country have studied at primary school and at secondary school. Why do you think we, as a country, are so interested in this time period and its dynasty?

There is this enduring interest, and I’m pleased that [the Tudors] are still very much on the curriculum for GCSE and A-Levels. And so the show is geared towards students in that way. I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer drama of the period. It is hard to point to any other dynasty that delivers quite so much in terms of impact and change. You have a king who marries six times. You have a virgin queen, Shakespeare, and overseas exploration. England is transformed from a medieval to an early modern kingdom, and it all happens in this 118 year span.

When the curtain comes down at the end of the show, what conversation are you hoping that people are going to have on their way back home?

I hope that people will be saying, gosh, I didn’t know that, or that’s changed my opinion about that. Maybe Anne Boleyn wasn’t such a schemer. There are going to be some little surprises in the show in terms of my own favourite, surprising facts that I’ve picked up over the years, and hopefully casting a different perspective on these very, very well known personalities from the Tudor era.

In the age of shortening attention spans and a rising literary crisis, in your opinion, is it becoming harder to communicate history?

I would say not. I’ve had to change my approach, as have other historians, and make things shorter and sweeter. And again, I do a lot of social media now. I make YouTube shorts that try to condense a lot of information into a few seconds, because that’s all you have to catch somebody’s attention. But then, hopefully, that sparks the imagination enough for people to follow up and find out more.

And finally, for anyone who wants to follow a similar career path as you’ve had, what advice would you give them?

I would say first of all, go for it, because if you’ve got a passion for history, there is no better career. If you can, volunteer, or get a work basement, or just pick up some kind of experience while you’re studying. That then not only gives you experience, but also you get to meet people and those people will remember you when vacancies come up, so you can build up your contacts. That’s what I did when I was a student and it really did give me a kind of step up when it came to graduating and then being able to get work because I’d already made those contacts.

Tudors on Tour comes to the Warwick Arts Centre on 4th October. Tickets still on sale now at www.warwickartscentre.co.uk