Natalie Paris’s Jane Seymour’s rendition of the lovely ballad “Heart of Stone” was musically a real highlight.  At least we have her recording to still play.  The night I saw Six at the Vaudeville, the queen who died in childbirth was played by Dance Captain and Super Swing Collette Guitart which makes a nonsense of Anne’s comment that “Jane can’t dance!”

Alexia McIntosh fascinates as ever as the queen rejected for “her profile picture” .  I know she came from present day Germany but she was always described as the Flemish mare, from Flanders.  Germany didn’t exist before 1806.  But we always enjoy Anna’s sexy portrayal of the 1930s Weimar nightclub scene in 16th century Europe in “Get Down” with its ultra violet lighting and costumes. 

K Howard (Sophie Isaacs) was the most abused girl (too young to be called a woman), married to this really old and probably impotent man but unlike her wrongly accused first cousin Anne Boleyn, she probably was guilty of adultery which when you are married to a king is legally interpreted as treason. 

Catherine Parr (Alternate Hana Stewart) may have been given a more vibrant makeover and her song “I Don’t Need Your Love” seems to have more strength than I remember and is very popular with the audience.

The whole show has new lighting and exciting visuals and the choreography has been reworked.  I loved the show the early cast put on outdoors at the Tower of London with very young girls in the audience, often dressed up in queenly costumes, adoring these pop princesses.  The evening theatre audience is considerably older, late teens and twenties, and much noisier as screaming has become the norm, some, as the woman behind me at full scream throughout the musical numbers.   The front of house manager said that they had a particularly noisy group in whom they had asked to quieten down but of course the staff couldn’t reach the middle of the row.  Just saying!

My other quibble is some of the accents of the queens are down market but maybe that is a decision so the audience doesn’t label them as posh.  

These issues aside, Six the Musical is a phenomenon of pop music, magnificent lyrics and style which I suspect will grace the Strand for some years to come.