Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 REVIEW – SIX *****

‘From Tudor Queens to pop princesses, the six wives of Henry VIII finally take to the mic to tell their empowering tale, remixing 500 years of her-storical heartbreak into a 75-minute celebration of sisterly sass-itude.’ 

Or, rather Spice Girls embrace power-ruff meet Horrible His-stories Wham/bam and an anti-deference to the thank you Ma’am curtsy patronage. This is Anachronism meets slick-chick camp-vamp. Aside, or because of – this really shouldn’t work. A musical about the victims of a syphalitic, mysoginist serial killer with a lethal chopper? Are we about to lose our heads, become divorced from reality but still survive this ramped-up vixen-visioned hedonistic, burlesque – bending over backwards to accommodate a whacking six-of-the-worst? Time to diss-indoctrinate yourselves from the exam-crammed stereotypes and get on board with these boardy kick-assitude angels with dirty paces.

Rubbing themselves with Siren, sauce-pot sass disregard for convention up against the 4th wall these ladies-in waiting to be matched, hatched or dispatched shamelessly riff on the teenage syllabus rhyme-rote history trope – Divorced, beheaded, Died, etc survived.’ This is their story, not his-story you dig? They hyper-vent their slaughter-biographies, sweating and swearing hearts out on their spleen-spattered sleeves. This is confessional bling celebration recounting gross encounters of the worst kind with an egotist supperated iconoclastic with a monastery make-over complex. Babes-in-da-hood meets star-spangled glamour redux. The Underbelly is bloated with ram-packed punters utterly up for it and the all-girl band and cast are going to milk it with razor/laser sharp dairying-do.

Each wife has her calling-on swan-song – a Rex-factor princess pout ‘n shout battle royale. Who gets divorced, who survives and who comes a cropper from Henry’s not so actual whopper. The lyrics, the cat-fight stilettoed cuss and thrust banter are wittily slick, schtick and historically wry with estuary patois and outrageously anachronistic Carry On Cliché panache. A blizzard of pithy retorts prove these once shamed-dames are more than just token Tudor trophy totty. Highlight? There’s a challenge. The Trance/Dance Hans Holbein portrait gallery where Henry goes to find an off-the-shelf womb with screw heir recepticle features Bier Kellar/House music to a phosphorescent ruff n’ ready beat. Or perhaps Anne Of Cleeves’ pantherean ker-ching smoulder? Cat Parr brings it down to earth, a woefully under-sung woman of wisdom – somehow her story got lost in academia. ‘The Tudor Von Trapps/The Royaling Stones?’ SIX has the contemporary appeal of howling bellés-d’jours empowered enough to kick-ass start a revolution. Never mind the monarchs – these are the SIX-Pistols shooting from the lip.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on#q=%22Six%22