Six The Musical

Six brings the six wives of Henry VIII back as a pop group, hands each of them a microphone and lets them argue over which of them was treated worst. The contest is the format; the show is what happens when the queens decide to stop competing.

One by one they step forward with a number built to their own personality, and each song reframes a woman usually reduced to a single word in a schoolroom rhyme. Divorce, beheading, death and remarriage stop being a mnemonic and become six separate lives, told with jokes, grievance and a surprising amount of grief. By the end the competition has been abandoned in favour of something the queens want more.

Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss wrote the music, lyrics and book while they were students, and the piece grew from a short student show first performed at a fringe festival in 2017 into a full production staged around the world. The score works in the idiom of contemporary pop, so each queen sings in a recognisably different style.

It is staged as a concert rather than a costume drama. The queens speak straight out to the audience, the band plays in view, and the design leans on studs and sequins rather than Tudor realism. The effect is closer to a gig than a history lesson, and the noise the crowd makes is part of the performance.

Six is loud, quick-witted and built for anyone who wants their history with a beat behind it. It lands best live, where the queens can play the room and the last number turns the whole place into a singalong.