‘Six: The Musical Live!’ Review: The Tudor Queens of Pop Rule

A month ago, I wrote an editorial about how criticisms of “historical accuracy” in popular culture are often weaponized to enforce and legitimize bigoted concepts about the past. I was defending Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” but libraries are littered with stories that use historical revisionism to make an important point about the present, offer valuable context about the past or even just have a good time. Literature like, I dunno, let’s pick a random example out of a hat … Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

I should have also pointed in the direction of “Six,” a blockbuster London West End stage musical about Henry VIII’s six infamously ill-fated wives. That’s two divorces, two beheadings, one death from natural causes and one who stuck it out, but whether that counts as a “win” depends on how fun you think it’d be to stay married to a two-time wife-killer.

These queens have been scrutinized, analyzed and immortalized many times over, but until “Six” came along, they’d never been reimagined as a pop act with wicked pipes and sick, sick beats. It’s ahistorical, but only a-holes would complain, because the alternative to accepting this fascinating, energetic concept is to wag your fingers and say it isn’t patriarchal or sexist enough. And if you think there hasn’t been enough patriarchy or sexism, I don’t think you’ve learned anything about history at all.

“Six” was written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, and since its debut in 2017, it’s won two Tony Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and the hearts and minds of audiences all over the world. Now, like recent celebrated productions of “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Hadestown,” it’s an official pro-shot motion picture, filmed live onstage with the original West End cast. If you couldn’t make it to the theater before, now you can make it to another kind of theater and see what all the fuss is about. Good news: The fuss is about a fabulous, electrifying (albeit short) pop phenomenon.

“Six: The Musical Live!” opens with the wives of Henry VIII taking the stage, decked out in sparkly, sexy, color-coded medieval costumes. They’re here to put on a show and, in a riff on reality singing competitions, battle it out for a coveted prize. After six radio-friendly numbers, each detailing a different tragic marriage, a lead singer will be crowned based on which queen got royally screwed over the most. If you’re wondering how these other queens think they can compete with Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, who were literally decapitated, well, so are Anne and Katherine — and Anne is particularly salty about it.

A half-dozen women debating who had the worst marriage doesn’t sound particularly feminist but, of course, “Six” eventually flips its script and world history upside down. Liz Clare directs the film and sticks to familiar, effective stage-show cinematic lingo until a late-stage twisteroo that changes the visual language. Briefly. Just enough to make an impact, because we have to get back to the (admittedly satisfying) basics. It’s not on Clare to completely reinvent how live musicals are filmed for the big screen, so we can complement the filmmaker on a wholly professional, absorbing experience with one memorable gimmick.

Every performer who returns for “Six: The Musical Live!” gives a stunning performance, modeled after an iconic pop music stage persona. Catherine of Aragon (Jarneia Richard-Noel) brings the Beyoncé, Anne Boleyn (Millie O’Connell) is a lively Lily Allen, Jane Seymour (Natalie Paris) belts à la Adele, Anna of Cleves (Alexia McIntosh) is a Nicki Minaj homage, Katherine Howard (Aimie Atkinson) channels Ariana Grande, and Catherine Parr (Maiya Quansah-Breed) is on par with Alicia Keys.

They’re evenly matched but not evenly festooned. This problem may be unique to the film version, but Anne Boleyn’s sharp-angled costume is so shiny and such a bright, effervescent green that she pulls focus whenever she’s on camera, even when she’s in the background and in shadow. The other costumes are balanced between one Crayola color and muted black; Boleyn’s ratio is a wild contrast, which befits her characterization but distracts the camera. Millie O’Connell is a standout performer, easily the cattiest queen in “Six,” so it doesn’t hurt her in the slightest. It’s just that sometimes we’re trying to watch Jane Seymour belt an emotional number, and Jane should be our point of interest.

Of course, a filmed version of a stage play isn’t the same as watching it live. There’s probably an adaptation worth producing down the line that shoots “Six” like a reality television competition instead of a live cabaret experience, but that’s not this version. This is the closest most of us will get to seeing this show unless we move to a major metropolitan area or at least get a meaningful pay raise. (In this economy? Now that’s implausible.)

“Six: The Musical Live!” is a fabulous document of a fabulous stage show. The only real complaint is that it’s such an efficient production that it’s over too quickly. A great performer always leaves us wanting more — and six great performers leave us wanting six hundred percent more.