A MOCK monarch cannot Anne of Cleves his good luck as he is set to enjoy a well above Parr year thanks to a hit BBC show.

Henry VIII “interpreter” Tony Strange has seen his bookings double in 2015 thanks to the hit BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s book Wolf Hall.

The 53-year-old may cut a different figure to the dashing Damian Lewis but history fans will Seymour and more of him during the next months.

Mr Strange said: “There are about 20 men around the country who make a living as Henry VIII and I believe I am the only one in Sussex.

“The interest normally increases when Henry VIII is on TV.

“When The Tudors came out with Jonathan Rhys Meyers a few years ago it did exactly the same thing.”

Mr Strange, real name Tony Harris, started his life as a Tudor monarch at Henry’s home, Hampton Court Palace, in 2009.

After getting the job ahead of thousands of applicants, he had three months of training at Tudor school and lived in a flat at the palace.

As part of his three-year contract, the 53-year-old had to agree to remain above 18 stones with a strict diet of cakes and chips to retain the weight.

The married father-of-three then decided to strike out on his own and has never looked back, with 100 bookings already in his diary for 2015.

Mr Strange, from Hastings, said he has performed before a million people, including 40,000 at Warwick Castle and 20,000 at Wembley Arena.

He has had Prince and Princess Michael of Kent bow to him but he failed to meet the Obamas when he fell asleep waiting for them and they walked past him as he snoozed.

The father-of-three learnt phrases in scores of different languages for a job at Apple launching a new iPad at Bratislava Castle in Slovakia, only to be told he was expected to remain silent during the press conference with the world’s media.

His three custom-made £1,000 costumes are produced by a seamstress from Little Common and are based on portraits by Henry’s painter Hans Holbein.

Mr Strange said that compared with Hollywood heartthrobs Damian Lewis and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, he was “far from a pin-up”.

He said: “People forget that when Henry came to the throne he was a fit young man and remained so until his mid-30s and a nasty jousting accident.

“I play him as he would have been at my age – and that’s how people expect him to be.

“If you had an event and someone young and good looking came out as him, people would say ‘who’s that?’ “My wife is keen for me to lose weight but I would have to push a cushion up my top.”

For more information, see henrythetudor.com.