Henry VIII: Man and Monarch

More bloggers' reactions

We always enjoy reading what bloggers have to say after visiting our exhibitions. Here are three recent reviews...

• "Very cool :)" US student Rebecca Stone is getting plenty out of her summer studying in London

• "I was deeply moved... at the sight of documents which [changed] the world. If you are as well, this is the show for you" Fr John Zuhlsdorf brings the Catholic perspective on the schismatic King

• "Intense but really exciting... I would be quite happy to catch the train up again" Lilacsky clearly doesn't do things by halves either

If you've been to the exhibition, or any of our events, mention it on your blog!

New York Times review

"Thrilling show... this is the stuff of goosebumps": The New York Times critic was seduced by scholarship at our Henry VIII exhibition...

BBC Radio 4 visits exhibition

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 15-minute programme entitled 'Henry the Scholar', as part of a series examining various aspects of him, at 3.45pm today.

The programme visits the Henry VIII: Man and Monarch exhibition and discusses some of the key items with historian Steven Gunn from Merton College, Oxford, and the exhibition curator Andrea Clarke.

Joining the discussion is James Carley, who appears in our new podcast on Henry's Psalter.

'Superb show', says Indie

Our Henry VIII exhibition is a "superb show", enthuses Matthew Bell in last Saturday's Independent.

(Though Mr Bell appears to think Henry wrote Greensleeves, which he didn't. He did write plenty of other music though, as featured in our recent podcast.)

Henry VIII May Day pictures

We've just found this set of photos of last Monday's Henry VIII May Day events here on Flickr, on McTumshie's Henry VIII set. They include a good picture of the five-year-old winner of the Henry lookalike contest.

Jouster, hunter... rugby player?

The Guardian over the weekend was impressed enough by our Henry VIII exhibition's jousting interactive to write a long article on Henry the sportsman.

He'd have made a fine captain of England's rugby team, they reckon, especially in his natural position of No. 8.

Henry VIII 'most important monarch ever'...

...well, that's what David Starkey told the School Gate blog, who were very complimentary about our exhibition.

What do you think? Was Henry a Bad King but a Good Thing, as the spoof history book 1066 And All That might have said? Or did he start a Good King and become a Bad Thing? Let us know...

More reviews: Guardian, Sky Arts

In his essay on Henry VIII in Saturday's Guardian, Jonathan Jones discusses many of the documents in the exhibition, and how they shed light on Henry's personality and state of mind.

And on the website of the TV channel Sky Arts, Carla Evans's review gives the thumbs-up to the exhibition ("engrossing... not to be missed"). The website also provides a slideshow of some of the images on display.

Launch tonight, opening tomorrow

The Henry VIII exhibition opens to the public tomorrow, and more press previews are going up online.

Time Out, the London listings magazine, has already picked out the exhibition as one of its must-sees of the summer.

Yesterday's Daily Telegraph runs a story on the exhibition's reuniting of one of Henry's letters to Anne Boleyn and the writing desk on which it was composed.

The fact that Henry corresponded with Anne at all was significant: he rarely wrote letters. However, he was a busy margin annotater, leaving a trail of observations and comments in his books that give us a fascinating insight into his thinking during the tumultuous second half of his reign. All that will be covered in detail in the exhibition too.

The official royal launch party is tonight. We'll be putting up pictures and reports on the British Library Twitter feed.

Times, Telegraph previews

The exhibition starts in two days' time, and already there are enthusiastic previews in the broadsheets.

"The more closely you look, the more historically fascinating, the more emotionally moving, the more atmospherically vivid this show starts to feel", says Rachel Campbell-Johnson in today's Times.

Last Friday's Telegraph ran a slide show featuring some of the most striking items from the exhibition.