REVIEW: Six the Musical at the Vaudeville Theatre

Since its first full mounting in 2017, SIX has taken over the world. The Queens are now all across the globe, from the West End to Australia and even at sea! The Musical, By Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, has changed the face of musical theatre and has brought a new, young audience to our theatres across the globe. There is no doubt as to why that is, this fresh show remains as relevant and sassy as it did 5 years ago. 

Now playing in London’s Vaudeville Theatre, the show has found its forever home. And I’m pretty sure we can expect this one to run for a while! The show tells the story of Henry VIII’s wives through their eyes in a contemporary and modern way through the use of songs based on modern-day icons. Whilst the storyline may be pulled together with a book thinner than a piece raw spaghetti, that doesn’t matter because what drives this is the score. 

REVIEW: SIX at the Vaudeville Theatre

SIX has been on the go since 2017 when Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss wrote the original musical for students at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Since then, it has rocketed sky-high and is now not only on the West End and a UK tour but on Broadway, Chicago and Boston, as well as touring on the other side of the world in Australia and New Zealand. The energy is unmatched and there is no sign of this show’s momentum slowing down any time soon.

Let’s face it, Henry the 8th is only memorable because of his 6 wives; so SIX introduces us to the powerful women whose lives were summarised in just one word: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Each Queen ‘competes’ in a battle against the others to prove they had the most traumatic life, before coming together and rewriting ‘herstory’. 

COMING HOME: Collette Guitart, currently in SIX the Musical at the Lyric Theatre, soon to transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Six the musical hit the West End in early 2019 and has captured audiences, moving from its run at the smaller Arts Theatre to its first big West End venue at the Lyric Theatre where it is currently playing, the show will move to its new permanent home at the Vaudeville Theatre from the 29th September. 

Collette Guitart is the dance captain and understudies all of the Queens in the show, she has been with the production in its run at the Arts Theatre and is playing with it at the Lyric Theatre. She will be transferring with the show when it moves to its new home next month. Previously she appeared in Rip it Up at the Garrick Theatre, Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre, was a swing in the UK Tour of Wonderland and was in the ensemble of 27: Rise of a Falling Star at the Cockpit Theatre. 

REVIEW: Alyssa: Memoirs of a Queen at the Vaudeville Theatre

Theatre is back for 2021! And for one week only, the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s bustling West End has managed to smuggle in a fan favourite from Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Of course, I am talking about the Texas doll herself, Miss Alyssa Edwards, who is currently performing in her one-woman show: “Alyssa: Memoirs of a Diva”. 

Marking her West End debut, “Alyssa: Memoirs of a Diva!” is a whistle-stop tour of drag excellence as we dive into the whirlwind lifestyle of the dancing diva herself. With stories about her time on the hit TV phenomenon, her own Netflix series “Dancing Queen”, lip-syncs and more rhinestones than Priscilla’s tour bus, this show contains all the glitz and glam any drag fan could hope for, while also introducing us to the individual behind the glitter foam wig and lashes. 

From the minute the curtain went up, it was clear that we were in the hands of a seasoned, professional entertainer, and in for a highly entertaining evening, packed full of goops, gags, and giggles!

REVIEW: Emilia at the Vaudeville Theatre

This production, which has recently opened at the Vaudeville Theatre, had its premier at the Globe in August 2018. Moving from the Globe can be difficult due to the nature of the space but it really feels like the company have cut a portion of the theatre and placed it in the heart of the West End.

Following the story of Emilia Bassano, the ‘Dark Lady’ erased form History. A girl from a good background educated and taught to contain herself but has a huge voice needing to be heard underneath. From the tender age of 7 years old we see her grow up into a young woman and head straight through into adult life. An aspiring poet, she couldn’t have her work published because women could only have religious text published into the world. After some clever thinking she, and her students, come up with a way to get around this and start to educate Women throughout London. 

What this play does is wake us up. It shows us how similar our times are to then, with the links made by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (writer) between this time period and modern day we can make the parallels between the two societies. Its amazing how far we’ve come, of course, but its also astonishing how little progress we’ve made in this huge amount of time. 

Game of Thrones takes over the West End!

Iwan Rheon in Foxfinder at the Ambassadors Theatre

Iwan Rheon played Ramsay Bolton in the TV show, Game of Thrones. He is also known for Misfits and Inhumans. He made his stage debut in the Broadway transfer of Spring Awakening at the Lyric Hammersmith and later, the Novello Theatre. He'll star in Foxfinder which opens at the Ambassadors theatre from the 6th September. 

Maisie Williams in I and You at the Hampstead theatre

Maisie Williams plays Arya Stark on the hit show, her other credits include Doctor Who, Cyberbully, iBoy and Mary Shelley. She will make her stage debut in I and You at the Hampstead Theatre from the 18th October. 

REVIEW: An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre

Jonathan Church has produced this wonderful Oscar Wilde play in Salisbury and at Chichester and now directs it as part of the Oscar Wilde season at the Vaudeville. It is easy to see why he returns to this incredibly witty melodrama about truth, morality, love and politics as although it was written in 1895, it still remains fresh, relevant and highly entertaining. In the first two acts Wilde's witty one liners rattle across the footlights in a machine gun rapid fire so that it is sometimes hard to catch and digest them all. Church brings his cast downstage to fire these lines out with precision and delight and we easily set aside his age and colour blind casting. In the third act, it is a hilarious farce which is elegantly resolved in Act 4. 

The casting of Edward Fox as the Earl of Caversham together with his actual son, Freddie Fox as his son Viscount Goring provides an extra delightful piquancy to many of the lines as he describes him as "a good for nothing son " and that he never "knows when you are serious or not" and Goring later retorts "Fathers should be seen and not heard ". Freddie Fox is magnificent as the pleasure seeking narcissist who turns out to be a smarter intermediary amongst the aristocratic society in which he mixes. Dressed to look like Oscar Wilde himself Goring is challenged by his father if he is married yet and quips " ask me again half an hour" and then secures the hand of Faith Omole's Miss Mabel Chiltern, although we are never sure whether this is for convenience or love and he certainly does not appear to be an ideal husband. Indeed as he himself says “I usually say what I really think. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood".