By Adam Bloodworth
Six the Musical review and star rating: ★★★★★
If you heard about Six when it opened but decided it wasn’t for you, now’s the time to think again. Six the musical is a musical that even those that don’t like the artform must attend. Bold and brave in just about every way, it has a thrilling and surprising way of bringing the tragedies of the six wives of Henry VIII to life with comedy.
In case you can’t remember from primary school, it goes like this: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. The opening and closing gambits of the hour-long musical are renditions of a song that repeats these six words, and at first just feels like a familiar retelling of a piece of history. By the rendition at the end, I was fighting back tears as the six queens declared those pertinent six words while flinging their arms and legs around like dancing was going out of fashion.
The musical, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 before transferring to the West End proper in 2021 in a meteoric rise for a Cambridge University production, has an unnerving way of capturing the tragedy of the injustices faced by these women. It celebrates their lives using amazingly vivid song and dance, but doesn’t gloss over the systemic injustices which ultimately took their lives.
This new cast are resplendent, breathing fresh life into Six, which itself still feels like the freshest musical in town.
Six new females are leading the cast for 2023, and during one of their earliest shows, they had the kind of natural chemistry you’d expect from a troupe that have been playing these roles for years. The set up is gig theatre, so the wives chat informally between songs, and there’s a playful plot where each tries to outdo the other with their sad life stories. It’s a clever format: it’s good fun but also emphasises how terribly these women had it, leaving you confused about how you should feel while watching.
They’re all uniquely fab, but Baylie Carlson is a highlight, kicking things off as a playful Anne Bolelyn, traversing the stage with a cocksure strut as she goads the other girls to come up with a better story than hears about being beheaded. Dionne Ward Anderson has star quality as Anna of Cleves, belting as she contorts her body while singing, giving the most polished pop star performance. Claudia Kariuki is devastating as Jane Seymour, who developed postnatal depression after giving birth and died not long after.
Whether performing solo or singing as an ensemble like a more fierce Destiny’s Child, this new cast are resplendent, breathing fresh life into Six, which itself still feels like the freshest musical in town. As the curtain fell and I wiped away a tear and overheard a lady next to me. “Don’t cry, it’s weird! Don’t cry, it’s weird!” she joked to a friend. Hard relate.
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