You’ve most likely never stopped and thought ‘what the world really needs is a musical where all of Henry VIII’s wives form a girl band’, and you might even be thinking that such a musical sounds like the worst thing you could possibly imagine. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.
Six certainly had a unique premise, but one-of-a-kind makes for intrigue and I found myself booking a ticket sure of one thing: this show was either going to be the biggest waste of time in human history, or the best use of that time. Luckily I found myself watching the best 70 minutes of my life for a very long time.
This is not a serious musical. If you want Les Mis, go see Les Mis. But if you want six former queens of England banding together to sing their way back into the history books as more than one word in a rhyme, you’ve found yourself a winner. Self-aware of themselves and each other and the legacies they left behind, this is the newest musical to reinvent history by letting historical figures ‘tell their story’, so to speak. If you’re a fan of how Hamilton works with fact and creates a modern story out of the past then you might just find yourself fond of Six too.
Each genre song from girl band canon is represented, from ballad to break up song to anthem, and all of them will have you bopping your head along and humming the tunes on the way home. Framed as a gig in a pop concert tour, the energy of this production filled the small space of the Arts Theatre in seconds and left me wondering just what it could do with a bigger space. It’s very much squashed in at the Arts, both physically on the tiny stage and in terms of schedule, playing every Monday for four weeks around the main show on at the venue. Six definitely deserves a space it can call and make its own, even if only for a short run.
If the subject matter and kick ass songs don’t convince you to get yourself a ticket, then the cast should. All divas in their own right, Aimie Atkinson, Izuka Hoyle, Renée Lamb, Genesis Lynea, Christina Modestou and Natalie Paris all kill it on their solos and blend together beautifully on their group numbers. They’re a force to be reckoned with individually and as one group they might just be unstoppable.
My one complaint is the occasionally cringey dialogue that stalled on a few moments, but it wasn’t about that. It was about seeing historical figures reinvented and put in a time where they were allowed to claim their own power and stand up to a man who has dominated their personal narratives, and it definitely succeeds in that category.
Word of Six’s infectious good time has already been spreading and remaining tickets are sparse, so grab yourself one whilst you can. Hopefully we’ll see another production of this show soon!