REVIEW: SiX

Full disclosure: All I want from life at this moment is a SiX cast album. The show poses one question: what if the six wives of Henry the Eighth formed a pop supergroup? We get the answer in the opening number: they'd be unfairly good.

I don't need to tell you to go and see SiX- they sold out their run at the Edinburgh Fringe after their first preview, and have since sold our their homecoming run here. Opening night finished with a standing ovation from the entire packed ADC. But I'll gladly add to the plethora of five star reviews, if it means it'll get me closer to the dream of owning a cast album. Toby Marlowe and Lucy Moss have written a glittering romp through the lives of history's most misunderstood women, all under the guise of an onstage argument about who deserves the accolade of having put up with the most "shhhhh".

Agnes Cameron provides each queen with eye-catching costumes.

With all ensemble musicals like this one, a skeptical audience member might start by wondering which of the group will outshine the rest. Not so with SiX. It seems like every song is a highlight, from Jane Seymour's (Holly Musgrave) beautifully sung Kelly Clarkson-esque ballad, to Anne of Cleves (Matilda Wickham) living large in a castle in Richmond. The lyrics wittily make 21st and 16th century jokes, ("Okay ladies now let's get reformation" sticks with me.) and the performances are some of the best I've seen at the ADC.

Having done a run at the Fringe, SiX is a tight ship- I only caught one mis-step in the choreography, and everyone was on top vocal form (much props to not only the cast but the band, led by musical director Joe Beighton.) Even if the songs might run long sometimes, the queens of SiX are so obviously having fun onstage, that it's a minor quibble.

As the first CUMTS original musical, SiX leaves some spacious shoes to fill. It would be a real tragedy if, like its protagonists, SiX was confined to the footnotes of (ADC and Fringe) history. Long may it reign.