By Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Louise Withers, Michael Coppel and Linda Bewick, by arrangement with Kenny Wax, Wendy and Andy Barnes and George Styles. Theatre Royal, Sydney. Opening Night: 30 October, 2024
Reviewed : 30 October, 2024*
It’s easy to see – and hear – why Six, its queens and their Ladies in Waiting have been wowing audiences around the world since its debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 2017! How clever of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss to turn history around and write about the wives of Henry VIII rather than their errant husband!
How clever to make it a rock musical that almost passes the Bechdel Test! Because though the queens do mention the man they married, the stories they tell are not about him. There’s “N,N,N, No Way” that the king features strongly in their stories! And there is nothing dull about those stories. They are clever and witty, told in a punchy “pop concert” beat and language that thumbs its nose at historians who have side-lined women for years.
While the first Australian production of Six was presented in the snug stage of the Studio at the Opera House, this production bursts brightly onto the much larger stage of the Theatre Royal. “It fits very nicely into the space,” says Associate Director Sharon Millerchip of this sassy satire vividly festooned with contemporary theatrical magic.
The set is electric! Designer Emma Bailley calls it an “intimate tech-pop Tudor court” which she wraps around the stage like a mini electrified amphitheatre where the queens and their musical Ladies in Waiting work together in time, tempo and sparkling colour.’
Costume designer Gabriella Slade created the incredible costumes that have become a Six symbol. Every queen has her own colour and individual design quirks that Slade says “reflect moments” of their story or personality. Aragon has enlarged shoulders that “reflects tradition and steeliness”. Seymour’s costume suggests the lines of Tudor architecture. Anne of Cleves is cheeky in thigh high boots and chains. Boleyn wears a choker!
Every costume is intricately constructed, including the cunningly concealed pouch in each waistband that holds their hand-held microphone. Studs, chains, crystals and lights glitter on corsetry, skirts, moulded shoulder pads and platform boots as the queens belt out their signature songs and move faultlessly together in precise, fast choreography. This is their history and it’s written with a brash, new pen!
They are portrayed by six of Australia’s highly trained, exuberant arts sorority. Kimberley Hodgson is the determined, defiant Catherine of Aragon. Deidre Koo returns to the Royal as a strong, feisty Anne Boleyn. Loren Hunter is the loving and (supposedly) loved Jane Seymour. Zelia Rose Kitoko is a sassy, Teutonic Anne of Cleves. Chelsea Dawson plays the much-maligned Katherine Howard and Giorgia Kennedy is a calm, intelligent Catherine Parr.
With their Ladies in Waiting at their backs – keys (Heidi Maguire, Claire Healy), drums (Kathryn Stammers), guitar (Danielle Colligan) and Bass (Ann Metry) – the six queens enter in a flash of electronics to greet an excited first night audience.
‘Hello Sydney!’ calls one just as Taylor Swift did earlier this year. “Get ready for a story you may have studied for your HSC!” says another. They know their audience and are prepared to give them just what they expect – fine, clear voices, fast, co-ordinated movement, lots of sass and chutzpah … and a story that is much fairer and decidedly more upbeat than the old rhyme “divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived”!
See Six and be impressed not just by the clever idea, the music, the costumes, the colour and energy but by the talented Australian queens who really rock this bit of history!
First published in Stage Whispers magazine.
*Opening Night