Review of the Musical Six

I watched Six the musical and it was brilliant.  For my silver Arts I wanted to share my views on the experience.

Review of the Musical Six

I watched " Six" by Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow at Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford.  It is about the six wives of Henry VIII.  It was a very immersive experience because of the lights and the staging.  It is a very simple layout with the six wives in a semicircle and the ‘Ladies in Waiting’ (the band) behind them.  The play’s most important theme is that women are powerful and have their own lives, and that when they work together anything is possible.  The costumes are modern, but some aspects of the historic styles are incorporated in them.  Each wife has a main colour that they wear which corresponds with their personality and the songs that they sing.

In Moss and Marlow’s “Six”, the six wives of Henry VIII, called Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr, tell their story about their lives with Henry through emotive and upbeat songs. However, as they fight over who had the worst time, they realise that maybe they should not be fighting each other but spreading the ‘herstory’ of their lives.  Everyone knows the famous six wives of Henry VIII, and the song accompanying it telling their fates of being “Divorced, Beheaded, Died. Divorced, Beheaded Survived.” But no one knows what life was like from their point of view.  

Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was married to him for 24 years, from when she was 23.  Before that, Catherine was married to Henry’s brother Arthur for 8 years.   She has a broad education in lessons such as dancing, history, religion, Latin and French, but she did not speak English.  The second wife was Anne Boleyn, she was educated in the Netherlands and France, she was also interested in fashion, dancing and collecting evangelical works.   Henry’s third wife was Jane Seymour, who is famous for being the only one that he truly loved.  She was taught how to run a household and do needlework.   Anna of Cleves was Henry’s fourth wife, and she only spoke German, which must have made it hard for her to communicate with Henry.  Henry’s fifth wife was Katherine Howard,  and she liked dancing, music and animals.  She was brought up in Sussex with a large group of aristocratic girls.   Finally, Henry’s sixth wife was Catherine Parr, she was interested in writing books and encouraging education.   She was the first woman in England to publish a book under her own name in English!

In my opinion of this musical was that it was a very interesting telling of Henry VIII’s wives.  I also enjoyed the fact that all the band members were women and that they were called the ‘Ladies in Waiting’, this is because you do not normally get a fully female cast.  It was also cool how they played some modern songs but in medieval styles, and how each of the wives have two famous female artists which they are based on.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in history or who just enjoys great musical productions.  

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Betsy Goodman

Betsy Goodman

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