Six The Musical
Vaudeville Theatre, London

TOBY MARLOW and Lucy Moss’s breathless, modern take on the fate of Henry VIII’s six wives now has a “forever” home at the Vaudeville in the West End, but it’s also about to embark on a British tour, beginning with Stockton-on-Tees and continuing through to Oxford at the back end of next year.

If it’s coming near you, then discard any prejudices you might have about glitzy, in-your-face musicals — and indeed about King Harry himself. Buy a ticket: it’s great fun.

Six has made its name with catchy pop songs, sparkly costumes, cutting wit and the novel idea of staging a 21st century gameshow in which Henry’s resurrected wives — all more or less divas — are pitted against each other to find out who was the most wronged.

Mostly it’s raunchy, knockabout stuff, irreverent and tongue-in-cheek. But Six also has a feminist thread, making the point that we’d be better off seeing the wives not through the prism of Henry’s existence, but via their own struggles and achievements. 

The point is made almost tangentially at times, and with no great degree of seriousness, yet there are regular reminders about the value of listening to other voices.

In that sense Six is about the losers writing history. It’s also entertainingly informative for those of us who think we know about what Henry got up to, but actually have very little idea.

The touring version will of course have a different all-female cast to the West End production. But the show itself is so strongly put together and so well written that you can be sure it’ll be just as good to watch on the road.

For dates and venues see: sixthemusical.com.