"I've been just one word in a stupid rhyme~!"

[spindizzy]

My pseudotwin and I went to see Six when it was showing in Nottingham – I got really lucky with the tickets, they kept flipping between "sold out" and "maybe five left!" so I had a few days of watching like a hawk. Absolutely worth it, that was fucking goooooooooooooooooood. The tl;dr I remembered was "What if Hamilton, but pop and about the wives of Henry VIII" and I completely undersold it to myself. The premise is that the six wives of Henry VIII compete through the medium of pop to explain who has the most tragic story and/or relationship with Henry VIII. The songs are catchy, the choreography's great, the reclamation of history and choices is just... *swoons*

Seriously, the theatre was PACKED and I've no idea why that surprised me considering the whole "Literally only five tickets left" thing. I guess that's what happens when you stop paying attention for like two years?

• The musicians got introduced by name and acknowledged as a key part of the show! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Wild, spectacular, liked that. (I could only see the drummer and the bassist from where we were sitting, but the bassist was a silver butch wearing studded docs and I love her.)


• PEOPLE WITH MY ACCENT, FUCK AYYYYYYYYYYYE. I can't remember which musical I was watching that I went "This rhyme structure literally only works if you have Andrew Lloyd Webber's accent," but I've not been able to stop thinking about it since. So SIX not only casting WOC and macunians and glaswegians but also having lyrics that sometimes relied on you not pronouncing things like a posh londoner? FANTASTIC.


• A thing it took me like half the show to realise was that the costumes have microphone holsters! That is incredibly practical, excellent, continue.


• (I had NO IDEA what was going on with the costumes but the longer it went, the more I liked them???)


• It does please me that the closest Henry VIII gets to a voice is being represented by a spotlight while being roasted by all of his wives. I see what they did there! I appreciate it!


• The ticket page had a link to one of the US performances of Ex-Wives so obviously I had to loop it all day before we went to see it. >_>
  
  • For the record, I don't remember studying the Tudors since about... Year four? Maybe doing some incidentally in high school, but for the most part the Tudors are outside of my historical wheel house. I think Pseudotwin's specialty was medieval history, but I could be wrong. Either way, the only complaint either of us could make about historical accuracy was Pseudotwin alleging that Catherine of Aragon wasn't loyal to the Vatican, she was a Hapsburg, then having to explain on the tram home why that was a devastating burn.
    
    • Me: Wait, how do you crash your economy THREE TIMES?!
  
  
  • "I broke England from the church, yeah I'm that sexy." *spits drink*
  
  
  • "I'm Jane Seymour, the only one he truly loved —"
    "Rude."
  
  
  • I like the line structure of Katherine Howard's bit! It pleases me a lot! Although the bit of the song that my brain latched onto was "I'm the survivor, Katherine Parr, bet you you wanna know how I got this far," because that build-up releases the dopamine.
  
  
  • The fact that they sound steadily more done each time they loop through the "Divorced / beheaded / died / divorced / beheaded / survived" is a great touch.


• "Which one of us is —"
  "The queen of the castle."
  "The rose amongst the thorns."
  "The Thomas Cromwell amongst the royal ministers between 1532 and 1540."


• No Way is such a fucking banger and Catherine of Aragon trying to bring up Henry VIII opposing the church is the weirdest recurring gag but I'm into it.
  
  • I remembered that Henry VIII was actually the spare and Catherine of Aragon was supposed to marry his brother, I did NOT remember that she was thrown in prison between the "supposed to marry Arthur" and "marrying Henry VIII" steps. Huh.
  
  
  • Do you ever wonder why Henry VIII bothered marrying people when he already had mistresses? Because I do.
  
  
  • FUCK LEVITICUS.
  
  
  • The looooooooooooooooooooong silence where she asks if there's anything she's done to deserve being fired divorced: excellent.
  
  
  • "So clearly I had the most to deal with from the king. And I hit that top C so, you know, donde está my crown?"


• Don't Lose Ur Head is incredibly catchy, I'm going to be singing that at every applicable opportunity. Sorry not sorry —
  
  • Anne Boleyn missing her intro because she's dicking about on her phone: big mood.
  
  
  • This is one of the songs that modernises what happened and I'm into it way more than I thought I'd be. It works better than Ex-Wives and the "unfriended" line.
  
  
  • "Soon my daddy said 'You should try to get ahead'" was followed by everyone on stage giving each other the BIGGEST look of YIKES. A+
  
  
  • Anne Boleyn interrupting her own song to go "No seriously guys, WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO?! He's literally going to CUT OFF MY HEAD!" is great, and it does so much character work whn she loops back to her own chorus at the end anyway. It makes her sound completely unrepentant in the face of the executioner and I love that for her.
  
  
  • K. Howard: Wait, did you actually die?
    Anne Boleyn: Yeah, it was SO extra.
    Me: KATHERYN YOU ALSO DIED.


• Jane Seymour's song is heart squeezing. Oh my god. Especially because she goes from "I'm the one he truly loved" to "But he's fickle and he could cast me aside at a single moment and I love him anyway."
  
  • Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn teaming up to roast Jane Seymour for her "If Edward had been a girl, Henry would have absolutely turned on me" thing gives me life. Look at this! Look at these people who all learned the same lesson the hard way!
  
  
  • Me: Oh, it's the ballad entry Eurovision puts in so you know when to get a tea break.
    SIX: Bitch you THOUGHT —
  
  
  • Jane Seymour is the one whose narrative is most defined by her marriage and child. Like, she and Katherine Parr are the most upfront on how awesome they think the other women are, which I appreciate! But her song feels the most... Internal? Inward facing. It's a fantastic song! I am just fascinated by how everyone else's songs is focused on actions, whereas hers is a focus on feelings and choices? It's basically a statement that this is what she chose and will continue to choose, despite everything and despite seeing Henry VIII's clearly for what he is. So I think her song fits her into the girl power tone SIX has going on! It takes "woman does socially expected thing and marries, has child, died" and makes it deliberate, it shows her as the one who was happiest to get and be married... It's a cool song that I 100% overthought, is what I'm trying to say here.
  
  
  • Jane Seymour: "What hurts more than a broken heart?"
    Anne Boleyn: A severed head.


• Haus of Holbein was the most hilarious song to watch, because everyone rushes off-stage and comes back with ruffs and sunglasses. Then the bass drops, so do the lights, and THE RUFFS GLOW UNDER BLACKLIGHTS. Mates, I fuckin HOWLED.
  
  • If you're gonna follow up a heartfelt ballad with anything, might as well go full tonally opposite and have a rave! Can't fault them!
  
  
  • Do you want a song about how Tudor make-up was either piss or poison? Because there is a song about how Tudor make-up was either piss or poison.
  
  
  • Me: Ah, I see, the line about turning this four into a nine is about misogynistic beauty standards and Anne of Cleeves' alleged glow-up!
    Genius.com: ... Also "vier" sounds like "fear." It's a pun.
    Me: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
  
  
  • The "voting yes or no" to the potential wives made me laugh even though it's terrible.
  
  
  • "Ignore the fear and you'll be fine" matches with every dude mentioned in the show either being a predator or wanting to throw their female relatives to the wolves.


• Get Down was literally Anne of Cleeves going MY LIFE WAS GREAT FUCK AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYE and I love that for her.
  
  • She tried SO HARD to poker-face the "Oh it's so terrible that I get to be independently wealthy and live in a palace making my own choices, doing whatever I want" and she COULD NOT DO IT. And was very cheerful about being immediately eliminated from the competition, because let's face it: she already won life!
  
  
  • The "have a little flirt with the footman as he takes my fur / as you were" slayed me dead even before I found the video of one of the US shows and how they handled it.


• Katheryn Howard going from person to person roasting everyone is so bitchy. So, SO fucking bitchy and I can respect that.
  
  • ALMOST moving to a nunnery, and then not? It ALMOST could've been really hard for you.
  
  
  • Anne, getting your head chopped off must mean you'll win – oh wait, who else did that happen to?
  
  
  • Jane, dying of natural causes? When will justice be served?!
  
  
  • Anna, being rejected for your looks sounds really tough. I wouldn't know anything about that!"


• Katheryn Howard's song started off as the most cheerful song about statutory rape I've ever heard, and then it progressively gets less cheerful and more horrifying as she realises that the way she's been treated is not okay.
  
  • No seriously, the performance here was spot on. The pride in her face when she talks about Mannox. The way that she looks more uncertain the more times she sings the chorus. The hope in her voice when she gets to Thomas, who totally only wants to be her friend. The way that she goes from accepting the touch of the other queens to actively fighting them off. The end of the song where she's completely alone as the lights cut out — It's horrible but fantastic storytelling.
  
  
  • Especially because if I'm reading my dates right, this song? Covers at most seven years of her life. A minimum of four, depending on whether the writers assumed she married Henry VIII when she was fifteen or nineteen and was executed at seventeen or twenty-one. I didn't anticipate how much of a gut punch that would be.
  
  
  • It also explains Katheryn Howard being quite so bitchy between songs! She is a teenager who never got to grow out of the "I know best" stage! ;_;
  
  
  • Genuinely though first time I heard this song and got to the "I was thirteen going on thirty" I was very much "... Okay you'd better be going somewhere with this because that doesn't fit the tone you've been going with," and then the rest of the song fucking happened. Fuck.
  
  
  • "Playtime's over~" How is this song upsetting and good in equal measure. Especially because this is basically the musical explanation that grooming creeps have one (1) playbook and they all fucking use it. (And hey, looking at the demographics of the audience? That might actually count as PSA.)
  
  
  • Then when someone says she didn't automatically win: "Excuse me, did you not hear my song? I had four choruses!"


• The parts where people go "Well what about THIS specific circumstance" and someone else goes "Oh my god, same!" are great. (Catherine of Aragon and Anna of Cleeves on being shipped to a country where they don't speak the language; Anne Boleyn and K. Howard on being beheaded)


• Katherine Parr going "Do we really need to compare trauma and abuse to see which was worse?" and getting "That's literally what we've been doing for the last hour," as a response, omfg. Especially because I missed that the thing they were comparing at that point was MISCARRIAGES, what the FUCK. Also how the fuck do you historically verify – you know what? I don't wanna know! I just don't!


• Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Howard high-fiving over being beheading buddies makes me laugh.


• "You must be exhausted from all those backing vocals," WOW.


• "Gold star for Kathy Parr" I die.


• That "If I had a choice" verse of I Don't Need Your Love is so like. Rousing and upbeat. And then Katherine Parr reminds everyone that she can't say that. That's not what hapened. And everyone sort of ... Wilts.


• KATHERINE PARR GOING OFF ABOUT HOW GREAT SHE IS AND HOW MUCH SHE WANTS TO TELL THAT STORY INSTEAD OF HAVING TO TALK ABOUT HENRY VIII AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN: YES. GO OFF. The explicit point being what story gets told and who gets to be memorable! All of these women had a story outside of Henry VIII! One that's rarely acknowledged!


• "Isn't there a bigger problem?"
  "The dissolution of the monasteries?"
  "Jane can't dance."


• The snapping into their poster poses but singing the most desolate, heartbroken "six" was hurtful.


• "Who was Henry VII's wife?"
  "Dunno."
  "Who was Henry VI's wife?"
  "Dunno."
  "Who was Henry V's wife?"
  "Catherine of Valois – I mean, I dunno."


• "Why are we famous?"
  "My sixth finger."
  "Put it away, babe!"


• The reversal that is "Why is Henry VIII famous?" "Because he had... Six wives..."


• "Oh, I get it! Since the only thing we have in common is our husband, grouping us is an inherently comparative act and as such unneccesarily elevates a historical approach ingrained in patriarchal structures!" YES ANNE, GET IN!


• "If we'd only realised this before the show so we could do something like stage a fake competition and have this realisation onstage, ideally in song form." *queens slowly smirk at the audience*


• The "Are you ready for a royal happily ever after? Because we don't have one," is a great mood flip from when they did the same thing in I Don't Need Your Love. Because yeah, if they'd left the show with the historically accurate endings, that would 100% have been downer endings! So honestly I respect them going fuck it, THIS IS A REMIX! You write your everybody lives/nobody dies AU and rock it.


• You know what Catherine of Aragon going from "Going to a nunnery is a fucking insult" to "I 100% would rather go to a nunnery than marry that clown" is? Growth.


• Anne, that's plagiarism. Like, I support this crime because honestly *Cell Block Tango intensifies* is basically the show's vibe, but it's still plagiarism.


• Jane Seymour being the cringey mum who loves bad jokes and can't dance is very sweet. I love that for her! And the implication I'm taking from her verse is that she's the only one who would voluntarily be married and have children (presumably to Henry VIII?), which is. Hm. Whatever makes you happy bestie.


• Anna of Cleeves teaching everyone how to party is the joy that she deserves.


• Thank you for freeing Katheryn from the cycle of disgusting men. \o/


• The chorus is so fucking meta??? It must be weird as a performer to do a song that's literally counting down until you stop being part of this group of characters and go back to being you.


• I was very confused when the pre-show announcement said that there'd be a section that we're allowed to record, but I really like that we've got a video of this riotous gleeful celebration of the show. That sparks joy.

I'm not doing favourites because a) patriarchal nonsense, and b) the number of qualifiers and "oh but also this one" would just make it silly. I will say that in the fortnight since we went to see it, Get Down has been my most consistent replay because it fucking slaps. I'm so glad bookgazing put this on my radar, 10/10 would go and see it again.