By Laura BennettFriday 8 Nov 2024Hope AfternoonsEntertainmentReading Time: 2 minutes
After an initial run in early 2020 and make-up shows in 2021/22 that ran into last year, SIX the musical is back in Sydney with all the fanfare that follows.
Key Points:
- SIX is playing at Theatre Royal until December 28.
- The stage play gives six (in)famous women a way to sing about their experience from another perspective.
- The writers of SIX thought, ‘What if we heard what Henry VIII’s wives had to say about it all?’
The British musical comedy plays like a singing competition between the six wives of Henry VIII, all making the case as to why they should be voted “worst-treated wife” and become the audience favourite.
If high school feels too long ago and you didn’t get tutoring about the Tudors, there was a lot of mess between Henry VIII’s and his wives.
Executions, divorce, adultery, premature death – all together tragic and thoroughly scandalous.
The stage play gives six (in)famous women a way to sing about their experience from another perspective.
SIX doesn’t dwell on the scandals or re-enact the details of history, it gives six (in)famous women a way to sing about their experience from another perspective.
From beginning to end, SIX is phenomenal. Unlike other musicals with extended dialogue between dance numbers, SIX’s cast barely have a moment to breathe before the next beat drops.
Their energy ebbs and flows with the tone of the moment, but if Beyonce ever has a day off, these women can be her stand ins.
It’s a lot of fun – which justifies its international fan following – but also points to larger ideas about how we understand the women of history.
Do we know them in relation to the men they married, loved or were wronged by? Or do we hear their stories as people in their own right? Is it OK to compare them?
The writers of SIX thought, ‘What if we heard what Henry VIII’s wives had to say about it all?’
The writers of SIX thought, ‘What if we heard what Henry VIII’s wives had to say about it all?’, and the result is an energetically bold and humorous take on a wild time in history that shows the value of looking at life from a different lens.
SIX is playing at Theatre Royal until December 28.
SIX is for mature audiences, with mild violence and sexual references.
Feature image: publicity image used with permission.