You might remember that this is not the first time we’ve discussed Six at Her Campus KCL. 90 minutes of pure joy, this musical hands the microphone over to the six wives of Henry VIII and lets them tell their story, without a single man in sight. I don’t know about you guys, but the wives were definitely supporting characters in my history lessons at school, and we were never taught properly about how hard their lives were, or how badass they were. With all the spotlight on the king himself, it’s sometimes too easy to forget that he had two of his wives murdered because he was bored of them and they weren’t providing him with a male heir. This show joins the currently rapidly expanding canon of telling the history we think we know in a completely new way.
So, what’s changed? Why are we talking about this show again? Well, it headed out of town for a while on a mini UK tour, but the huge success of it last year had them returning to the Arts Theatre for an extended run that’s currently booking for the next twelve months. The cast is still the same, with two new super talented swings joining the ranks so the queens can actually take some holiday over the next year.
There are some minor changes to the show itself, mainly a couple of dialogue alternations. Some is for the best – Jane Seymore focuses less on loving Henry and more on how protective she is of her newborn son; but some isn’t quite so great – they break the fourth wall a little too much when trying to be meta. The spirit of the show is undoubtedly intact though, as are the killer songs that you’ll be humming for the next week.
It’s not often that we get to see new British musicals that end up with long runs in the West End, even if it is at a rather small theatre, and it would be a crime to miss this production especially now you have a whole twelve months to get down to the show!