The Glove Thief by Beth Flintoff

Platform – a project by Tonic Theatre and Nick Hern books – aims to give ‘young women the opportunity to take centre stage.’ This does just that – an enjoyable re-telling of the succession ‘stand-off’ between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Finding themselves in positions of power, and pitched against each other at a time when primogeniture was the dominant force in succession and stability, their diplomatic cunning is laid bare to the audience by having three of the characters on stage with their narrator. Bess, loyal to Elizabeth, hides her anxiety from the shrewd Walsingham but shares it with us; Mary engineers her conspiratorial path but only we see how she plays those around her; and Rose, gifted at needlework, uneducated but resilient, reveals how she finds herself at the heart of the intrigue.