📷 Photo from Playbill.com
Historical musicals are on the rise globally. The Broadway hit Alexander Hamilton (2015). Then in 2017, a new musical about historical figures premiered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The musical, based on the six wives of King Henry VIII, is titled SIX: The Musical. The show is presented as a concert the wives are playing in, each song trying to one-up the others in how horrible being married to King Henry VIII was. The show is a little less than family-friendly as they do have swearing in the songs. The show first previewed in Edinburgh Fringe then went through the Arts Theatre, Off-West End, West-End, the North American Tour and it recently opened on Broadway in Brooks Atkinson Theater. With all of the show’s runs there come plenty of actresses to play as the characters.
The West End run allowed the show to really started to pick up steam. The six wives were played by Jarneia Richard-Noel, Millie O’Connell, Natalie Paris, Alexia McIntosh, Aimie Atkinson, and Maiya Quansah-Breed during the West End run, which in my personal opinion was the best run. It was considered the best run as it was the run that got the most attention. The main purpose of all the wives was to be the stars of the show and to tell their the mostly unknown tales of their lives.
The drama of the musical was the women fighting, in the comical way of singing, over who had the worst life with King Henry VIII. The ballads they all sing are based on the lyrical and rhythmic style of specific music artists of our generation. The duo that wrote the musical adapted their love of pop music and the ‘girl power’ of each star’s style to create less “lame parts” for women. Catherine of Aragon was based on Beyonce, Anne Boleyn was based on Lily Allen’s earlier style, Jane Seymour was based on Adele and Sia, Anna of Cleves was based on Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, Katherine Howard was based on Arian Grande, and Catherine Parr was based on Alicia Keys.
While the musical as a whole was good, it did find itself in some controversy. When the album was released the show had many critics regarding it as overly auto-tuned. Critics wondered if the actresses would be able to replicate the songs on the album but after listening to the musical in its album form and in live performances on Youtube, each actress seemed to be able to hit the right notes, although they did sound a bit different from the album. I'd attribute the differences in the shows versus the album to the women singing on the album were different people than those doing the live shows. Otherwise the musical is great in its way of presenting their lives to the audience. To listen to the musical just search ‘SIX the musical’ on Youtube and other music platforms.
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