Divorced, Beheaded, LIIIIIIVE!!!!

Finally!!!

I have been waiting for the perfect time to see this! It was touring last year, but as there wasn't a day all of my friends could come along, it had to pass; so imagine the sigh of relief when I heard it was coming back!

And this was NOT one I wanted to see on my own on my London trips - this is definitely one to see with a group of mates.

I have finally met the Queens of SIX!

It may have only been a couple of years since it premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but it has exploded into a cult smash hit! It has even been claimed as the British answer to Hamilton!

Now we've been welcomed to the show and the histo-remix, the question is did the Haus of Holbein live up to the hype - HELL YES!!!

Written by an all-new British writing team, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, SIX is part musical, part pop-concert and all parts sass-fest, reimagining the six wives of Henry VIII as a girl pop band. The girls hold a competition to become the bands leader by comparing their stories of what happened with their famous ex.
It sounds mad, but oh boy it works!

It becomes clear that Marlow and Moss know their girl singers, as each Queen is influenced by a different female artist, and their solos modelled after the style of that particular singer. For example, Catherine of Aragon's Beyoncé styled No Way is followed by Anne Boleyn's Don't Lose Your Head, a style mirroring Lily Allen, etc etc etc.
They're not all full of sass as well, as Seymour's Heart of Stone and Howard's All You Wanna Do can get either emotional or pretty dark!

Onto the Queens themselves, they were all brilliant, riffing left right and centre. If I were to pick a personal favourite though it would be Shekinah McFarlane as Anna of Cleves. I could NOT take my eyes off her, she was electric!

Lauren Drew as Catherine of Aragon was also a highlight for me, mainly due to the Welsh accent! We also had a cover on, as Jennifer Caldwell to the reigns of Anne Boleyn.

I may as well highlight the rest of the Queens too, as they all were fabulous! We also had Lauren Byrne as Jane Seymour, Jodie Steele (Heathers) as Katherine Howard and Athena Collins as Catherine Parr.

The Arts Theatre production received 5 Olivier nominations this year, including one for the costume design by Gabriella Slade - seeing them in the millions of videos on Instagram of the MegaSIX is one thing and seeing them in person is another - they are FAB! I may be only be able to possibly get away with Seymour's and Parr's but a girl can dream right...?
Oh and can I also say they had pockets. I repeat THEY HAD POCKETS FOR THEIR MICS!!! Yes they could have had head-mics but it feels into the concert feel more for me that they're handheld mics.

To finish, I need to mention that is a female band on stage, known as the Ladies In Waiting - so rare you see that! 😍😍😍😍 As well as that, there is a lot of women in the creative team too, notably with choreography and Lucy Moss herself co-directing the show.

SIX is on a 6 week run at the Lowry's Quays Theatre, then off on the rest of its tour, so if you can get tickets, either for the tour or the Arts Theatre run in the West End, then GO!!! You're guaranteed to have a good time!!

This is very likely to be my last show of 2019, as ever, December is always busy busy busy - what a way for not just the year but also the 2010 decade to go out with a bang!

Be on the look out for my end-of-year review as always. But until then, I hope my version of the MegaSix would suffice until now.