I’ve been a huge SIX fan since I first heard the studio album when it dropped in 2018. The obsession with the show only grew when I heard they were touring Australia and decided to plan a short (and expensive) trip to Adelaide just so I can catch the queens on stage for the first time.
Needless to say, after watching that performance, I was hooked, and had gone to see my second show when I was in the UK. So, when I heard that the show was finally making its way to our little island, there was no way I could miss getting to see the queens take the stage again.
For the uninitiated, SIX was created by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss who first staged the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017 before it became a musical sensation that sold-out show on London’s West End and on Broadway.
The story revolves around the six wives of Henry VIII — Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr — as it reimagines them into fierce and influential pop stars who seek to reclaim their own narratives; transforming their centuries-old heartbreak into a celebration of 21st-century girl power.
From the get-go, what makes SIX stand out amongst other musicals out there is not only the rather short duration of the show but how it was more of a concert than a full-fledged stage production.
The set on stage was simple and easily reflected what the entire show was trying to achieve; which was to focus on the women of Henry VIII’s life without the male gaze.
This, to me, was an important aspect because the concert setting had essentially created a platform for each queen to tell their version of the historic moments in their lives without discounting all that they have been through.
Having seen more than one production of SIX, I’ve always found that each cast member portrays their version of the queen in a different way, and that has always been one of the reasons why I’m such a big fan.
The cast for the Singapore staging of SIX was no exception, with each cast adding a little something extra that made their queen stand out.
While I loved all the portrayal of the queens dearly, I particularly enjoyed Billie Kerr’s version of Catherine of Aragon as her facial expressions and reactions during ‘No Way’ really added to the attitude and subtle “screw you” message of the song.
In spite of the insanely catchy tunes for each of the songs, SIX also has this genius way of poetically telling you the story of each queen from their perception.
This was evident in “All You Wanna Do” — K Howard’s song — which had her singing about her life and her experience with creepy, older men since the age of 13.
The ability to transition from this innocent re-telling of her earlier experience with the men in her life to her eventual realisation of being sexually exploited, was an ingenious way of giving this seemingly lesser known queen her time in the spotlight.
Coupled with the way how each version of Katherine Howard would elevate their performance, eventually reaching a somewhat frenzied state towards the end of the song; is evidence of just how creative this show really is.
Although SIX was just a reimagination of what the queens could have been like, I really liked that the show drove home the idea of female empowerment and how women should be lifting each other up instead of trying to compete with one another.
Because, at the end of the day, just as how the queens were so much more than what history had painted them out to be; women are so much more than their stereotypes and what men perceive them to be.
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