1536: HBO and BBC give Ava Pickett’s stage hit the transatlantic frame it was built for

The title contains the argument. In 1536, Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn executed at the Tower of London — a sovereign act of power over a woman, performed with the full machinery of state. Ava Pickett, whose play of the same name won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, has been pressing the question ever since: what did that moment cost the women who had nothing to do with it? Working-class women, far from the court, on the edges of the country — and of history. The answer, as her drama makes clear, is almost everything.

HBO has now joined the BBC‘s existing commission, turning Drama Republic’s six-episode production into a transatlantic co-production for HBO, BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The pairing makes sense at the level of the material. A story about power crossing borders — a king’s decision radiating outward to the margins — gains something when it finds a home on both sides of the Atlantic.

Molly Manners will direct and executive produce. Her work on In My Skin earned a BAFTA for Best Drama Series and set the template for what prestige BBC drama looks like when a working-class story is treated with full seriousness. One Day, her subsequent Netflix series, added a BAFTA nomination for best director. For Drama Republic — the company that produced One Day — the choice of director signals an event series, not a routine commission.

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Ava Pickett serves as showrunner, writer, and executive producer — a role that gives her the full creative architecture of the series, not just the writing credit. In the announcement, she described the project as being “about power, patriarchy and friendship”: three subjects her stage play compressed into a single evening, and that six episodes now have room to press further. The television adaptation retains the darkly comic register of the original, alongside what Pickett calls a “terrifyingly relevant” engagement with a world in motion.

The central question the series poses is specific and sharp: if a King can murder his Queen, what does that mean for women elsewhere — and how much have things really changed? It is a question that arrives, as HBO’s Francesca Orsi noted, with a “singular vision” behind it. BBC drama director Lindsay Salt pointed to the promise of “funny, courageous, and iconic female characters” at the heart of the commission.

1536 is produced by Drama Republic, a Mediawan Group Company, for HBO, BBC iPlayer, and BBC One. Additional executive producers include Jude Liknaitzky, Roanna Benn, Rebecca de Souza, and Chloe Beeson for Drama Republic, and Anna Ferguson for the BBC.

Tags: HBO, BBC, 1536, Ava Pickett, Drama Republic, Molly Manners

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