by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Aimee Atkinson, Alexia McIntosh, Millie O’Connell, Natalie Paris, Maiya Quansah-Breed, Jarneia Richard-Noel
Intro:
… a fun and occasionally traumatic frolic through the story of six slain queens who slay.
Theatre kids on a budget (or just those waiting for the show to return to Australia next year), rejoice! The proshot for SIX: The Musical that was released in UK cinemas earlier in 2025 is making it to our screens.
SIX: The Musical is basically Tudor history by way of The X Factor: Henry VIII’s six wives putting on a concert where they sing their stories and compete for who suffered the most as queen-consort, and therefore the leader of the band.
While the performers explore their respective woes and legacies, the music of Toby Marlow/Lucy Moss explores themes through genres, from the brat-pop of Anne Boleyn’s ‘Don’t Lose Ur Head’ (complete with what can only be described as Chun-Li eleganza), to the Eurotrash rave techno of ‘Haus Of Holbein’, to the Mustard-esque bounce of Anna Of Cleves’ ‘Get Down’, to the most depressing Britney Spears song she never recorded with Katherine Howard’s ‘All You Wanna Do’.
The music is poppy, fitting with the girl group concert framing, and even though it wouldn’t sound out-of-place on a Syco Music release back in the day (which might sound like a backhanded remark depending on one’s palette), they keep the energy consistently fun and engaging through the refreshingly-brief run time.
The reunited West End cast are all superb, whether they’re centre-stage with their character songs, doing light audience banter, or getting into proper reality TV in-fighting. With the show’s narrative flits between heartbreak and sudden chuckles, their collective handling of tone is highly commendable.
Debating over the Queen of Queens is part-and-parcel with the fandom for SIX, but for what it’s worth, Natalie Paris as Jane Seymour with her torch song ‘Heart Of Stone’ stands out as the point where the show’s initial frothiness gives way to emotional nuance and becomes the harbinger for things to get a bit darker in SIX’s poptimist historical recounting.
As for the film crew, director Liz Clare and DP Nat Hill have fun with essentially a filmed concert, while still allowing for intimate close-ups and even a jarring (but surprisingly fitting) handheld sequence leading into the finale. Their translation of the theatrical experience to the screen does justice to the smaller blocking moments from the performers, like the hand movements in ‘All You Wanna Do’, and they achieve a good balance between the theatrical rock-opera stylings of the text and the pop concert presentation of the stage.
But more so than how the individual pieces are preserved, it’s how they’re put together that makes the whole show worthwhile. Sure, its British flip on the Hamilton formula (right down to similarly… let’s call them ‘direct’ lyrical choices) feels familiar, but the way that it examines historical perspectives on women in royalty, the societal standards of the Tudor era, the in-fighting competitiveness that is part of modern feminist discourse, and the self-image issues that the singing competition shows that SIX is modelled after, sees the formula pointed in the right direction and hitting the target more often than not.
It’s a bit cheesy, some of the modernisation touches might cause some eye-rolling, and the conclusion (while impactful) can feel a bit forgone, but if there’s any place where being fully heart-on-sleeve sincere, cringe and all, is the best thing to be, it’s in a big stage musical.
SIX: The Musical Live! is a fun and occasionally traumatic frolic through the story of six slain queens who slay. The real meat of the affair, the cheeky but heartfelt approach to reappraising historical figures remembered mainly through a six-word mnemonic for GCSE students, is where this show really makes its mark. Nothing beats the live experience, but in a pinch, this is a pretty good way to either revisit the show or maybe even discover your next sonic obsession. Be prepared for a lot of humming to yourself for the next week or so.
