SIX The Musical

Are you ready for a musical that is deliciously decadent and raucously raunchy? Well, boy! Have I got a show for you.

Truly a 21st Century theatre hybrid, part rock concert, part cabaret and with the occasional nod to traditional narrative, SIX is the Love Child of Tudor History and The Spice Girls. It’s Girl Power on steroids and the energy on stage makes the Energiser Bunny look positively lethargic.

SIX is a masterful example of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. In truth, in another time and place, it would probably have been a knockout theatre restaurant or dinner theatre show. There’s not a lot of dialogue and the humour is of the “aren’t we naughty?” smutty variety, a strange anachronism at a time when four letter expletives are heard everywhere. The songs are good fast-food pop fare, and it runs only 75 minutes, using, as its core, a competition to see which queen was the most hard done by/popular. If you’re looking for rich story-telling, characters to love and identify with, and a satisfying ending, you won’t find it here.

What, then, makes it such a phenomenal success? It’s the casting, the performances, the musos, the lighting, the choreography, the details, and the dazzling charisma at every turn that elevates SIX to SIS – Something Intensely Special.

Though the six queens are dressed differently, there’s no attempt to give them character depth, but it doesn’t matter. These girls have been cast on their talent … and what talent it is. All are so good that to mention one I must mention all for they all have ATTITUDE that dares you to play favourites at your own peril. The 16^th Century is no part of their make-up, nor should it be. The show doesn’t pretend to be anything more than an entertainment…and great entertainment at that. Fabulous vocals and superb harmonies go hand in hand with impressive precision chorry that is dazzling. And the six queens never leave the stage in 75 minutes, so they deserve to be identified.

In order - Phoenix Jackson Mendoza is in superb voice as Catherine of Aragon, plus she’s cute and sexy and totally engaging, unlike the REAL middle-aged Catherine who tragically loved and lost a king. Ann Boleyn is given similar Attitude (deserved in this character) by Karla Gare, an astonishing young talent who is surely destined for a huge future. Loren Hunter manages to find some fragility in Lady Jane Seymour, without succumbing to victim mode, and totally smashed her rock ballad “Heart of Stone”. She’s a delight on stage and I hope to see her in role that stretches her soon. Kiana Daniele is a comic delight as Anne of Cleves. Like the first two queens, Kiana trained at VCA (Loren Hunter is a WAAPA grad) and kudos to whatever teacher awakened her fabulous comic streak. With shades of Betty Hutton and Fanny Brice (look them up if you don’t know them) and a smidge of Lucille Ball, she managed to get laughs where none were obvious, and created an individual character. Katherine Howard is probably the least known queen, and was apparently regarded as a ‘trollope’ in her day. Chelsea Dawson makes a meal of “All You Wanna Do”, playing the woman accused of being a whore with a sense of refreshing innocence. Vidya Makan, as Catherine Parr, gives the vocal performance of the night with “I Don’t Need Your Love.“ She is electrifying, and a stand out in an entire cast of stand outs.

Every single one of these performers is a star, as is the staging and choreography. Every hand moves as one, every step is perfection. Every note from Claire Healy and the all-girl band is exquisite. The sound and lighting could not possibly be better. But it’s left to the last five minutes for the Queens to explain to the audience (if they can stop them screaming hysterically) that all six of them are only known because of the man they married, without any acknowledgement of their achievements or who they are as individuals. Who knew that Catherine Parr was the very first female writer to ever be published? That last five minutes makes sense of the seventy minutes that have gone before, but is it too little?

While I can’t truly warm to it as a musical…as a Rock Concert throwback to the Spice Girls and the birth of Girl Power I absolutely ADORED IT. It’s not for everyone…especially polarising oldies (over fifties). They will either love it or hate it. Or maybe both at once! But I promise you will be entertained to the point of exhaustion.

Coral Drouyn

Phtographer: James D. Morgan