I love what they did with this tiny desk concert; I've watched a couple of others that always have phenomenal singing, but this had the best energy out of all of them. This show is coming through...
I love what they did with this tiny desk concert; I've watched a couple of others that always have phenomenal singing, but this had the best energy out of all of them.
This show is coming through my town and I declined to buy tickets earlier thinking that maybe it wasn't my style, but boy did this pique my interest...!
If it is anything like what happened in my city, the show will sell out on all days and resale tickets will be incredibly high. I highly recommend the show!
If it is anything like what happened in my city, the show will sell out on all days and resale tickets will be incredibly high. I highly recommend the show!
If you're not familiar with SIX, it's a pop concert musical in which the six wives of Henry VIII form a girl group. The songs they chose for Tiny Desk weren't necessarily the ones I would have...
If you're not familiar with SIX, it's a pop concert musical in which the six wives of Henry VIII form a girl group. The songs they chose for Tiny Desk weren't necessarily the ones I would have picked, but they're still good, and the cast is clearly ridiculously talented.
If anyone here has seen the show, let me know what you thought!
I don't know if I saw "the best" version of SIX because I watched it on a cruise ship (lol) but it was fantastic. My girlfriend and I aren't particularly into musicals but we both really, really...
I don't know if I saw "the best" version of SIX because I watched it on a cruise ship (lol) but it was fantastic. My girlfriend and I aren't particularly into musicals but we both really, really enjoyed it. I also went into it knowing next to nothing about Henry VIII or his wives (despite my being pretty into pre-Tudor English history).
A couple of the wives were portrayed by Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in a movie like 20 years ago
That was it.
Still loved it.
It's really impressive how much history and characterization they pack into like 90 minutes. The musical deliberately spends a lot of time establishing the wives as interesting, multi-dimensional people outside of their marriage to the king and succeeds in casting them as unique and sympathetic. It definitely helps the viewer to know the names of some of the major figures and have a bit of background info on what the social scene/royal courts were like during that period, but I wouldn't say it's necessary.
The script is also very funny. The frame device is brilliant (a modern gameshow with the wives competing to see who had it worst) and the writers do a great job of blending the 16th and 21st centuries for laughs.
And then there's the music, which is obviously what makes or breaks the show. Again, my girlfriend and I really enjoyed it. We were subconsciously humming the tunes or singing under our breath for the rest of the trip. The minute I found free wi-fi I was looking up Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, etc. I'm honestly still not all that interested in Henry VIII but apparently his wives are the bomb, hahaha.
All in all, I really recommend it as someone who went in knowing nothing about musicals or Henry VIII.
I loved it! My husband bought me tickets for my birthday. I'd listened through the soundtrack dozens of times and read online that it was essentially a just concert of those songs, so I wasn't...
I loved it!
My husband bought me tickets for my birthday. I'd listened through the soundtrack dozens of times and read online that it was essentially a just concert of those songs, so I wasn't expecting the actual stage presentation to add too much.
Wow was I wrong!
First mention is the costumes: the outfits were fantastic. They already look good in photos but they really popped onstage. Fantastic color and design.
Second mention is the performance: I, like you, loved the framing device, even though I was a bit more cynical about it. Defining women through their husband's actions and laughing about their tragic lives felt kind of regressive to me? Like, the musical and its surrounding reception treated it was if it were a pinnacle of pop feminism but I initially couldn't shake an ickiness regarding that?
Spoilers
I'm very happy that the musical actually knows this and inverts it. The humor actually lays the groundwork for some pretty effective tonal shifts, and the play ends with much more resonance than it starts out with. I can't remember exactly when or the exact wording used, but towards the end they openly acknowledge that the framing device is a calculated attention-getter with a wink and a nod, which covered a multitude of sins for me.
While we're in the spoiler territory, I also want to mention how unexpectedly emotional I got during "All You Wanna Do". I was already familiar with the song from the soundtrack, and it was another source of ickiness for me. I loved the melody, which is catchy as hell, but I hated that I enjoyed a song about sexual assault as much as I did. It also felt weird that it was played with such a... brightness... to it?
Well, the stage performance was completely different. It was heartbreaking. I cried. The song itself was technically the same, but the emotion in the cast member's voice, as well as the staging and choreography during that song absolutely floored me.
For those that don't want to read the spoiler block above, suffice it to say my concerns were addressed and I'm happy with how the play handled itself and its characters.
Another thing I liked was how sharp the musical was. Some of this comes through in the Tiny Desk concert, where they trade off talking and have their big hit "moments" as a group, but it's way better on-stage. It was fast and precise all the way through.
One thing that the Tiny Desk can't capture is their energy. I actually found it a bit awkward to watch them stuck standing in place dancing during the video because it's so unnaturally contained. "Get Down" on stage was one of my favorite numbers for how much the cast worked the whole stage for the entire song, but in the Tiny Desk concert, where they all have to just stand there, it's not nearly as entertaining or compelling.
Nevertheless, I absolutely loved the show. My husband, who's not as into musicals as I am, started actively listening to the soundtrack after we went to see it. We were actually watching a YouTube show recently that had some trivia questions, and one of them was "Who was Henry VIII's sixth wife?" I was trying to rack my brain for knowledge from the musical so I could answer in time when my husband prompted me with "I'm the survivor" (from the opening song) to which I yelled out "Oh, CATHERINE PARR!" I would have never known that if not for SIX!
Managed to see the same cast as this Tiny Desk when they came through our local city. My wife and I both loved it and still are singing the songs months later!
Managed to see the same cast as this Tiny Desk when they came through our local city. My wife and I both loved it and still are singing the songs months later!
I love what they did with this tiny desk concert; I've watched a couple of others that always have phenomenal singing, but this had the best energy out of all of them.
This show is coming through my town and I declined to buy tickets earlier thinking that maybe it wasn't my style, but boy did this pique my interest...!
If it is anything like what happened in my city, the show will sell out on all days and resale tickets will be incredibly high. I highly recommend the show!
If you're not familiar with SIX, it's a pop concert musical in which the six wives of Henry VIII form a girl group. The songs they chose for Tiny Desk weren't necessarily the ones I would have picked, but they're still good, and the cast is clearly ridiculously talented.
If anyone here has seen the show, let me know what you thought!
I don't know if I saw "the best" version of SIX because I watched it on a cruise ship (lol) but it was fantastic. My girlfriend and I aren't particularly into musicals but we both really, really enjoyed it. I also went into it knowing next to nothing about Henry VIII or his wives (despite my being pretty into pre-Tudor English history).
All I knew was:
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived
A couple of the wives were portrayed by Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in a movie like 20 years ago
That was it.
Still loved it.
It's really impressive how much history and characterization they pack into like 90 minutes. The musical deliberately spends a lot of time establishing the wives as interesting, multi-dimensional people outside of their marriage to the king and succeeds in casting them as unique and sympathetic. It definitely helps the viewer to know the names of some of the major figures and have a bit of background info on what the social scene/royal courts were like during that period, but I wouldn't say it's necessary.
The script is also very funny. The frame device is brilliant (a modern gameshow with the wives competing to see who had it worst) and the writers do a great job of blending the 16th and 21st centuries for laughs.
And then there's the music, which is obviously what makes or breaks the show. Again, my girlfriend and I really enjoyed it. We were subconsciously humming the tunes or singing under our breath for the rest of the trip. The minute I found free wi-fi I was looking up Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, etc. I'm honestly still not all that interested in Henry VIII but apparently his wives are the bomb, hahaha.
All in all, I really recommend it as someone who went in knowing nothing about musicals or Henry VIII.
What were your thoughts, kfwyre?
I loved it!
My husband bought me tickets for my birthday. I'd listened through the soundtrack dozens of times and read online that it was essentially a just concert of those songs, so I wasn't expecting the actual stage presentation to add too much.
Wow was I wrong!
First mention is the costumes: the outfits were fantastic. They already look good in photos but they really popped onstage. Fantastic color and design.
Second mention is the performance: I, like you, loved the framing device, even though I was a bit more cynical about it. Defining women through their husband's actions and laughing about their tragic lives felt kind of regressive to me? Like, the musical and its surrounding reception treated it was if it were a pinnacle of pop feminism but I initially couldn't shake an ickiness regarding that?
Spoilers
I'm very happy that the musical actually knows this and inverts it. The humor actually lays the groundwork for some pretty effective tonal shifts, and the play ends with much more resonance than it starts out with. I can't remember exactly when or the exact wording used, but towards the end they openly acknowledge that the framing device is a calculated attention-getter with a wink and a nod, which covered a multitude of sins for me.
While we're in the spoiler territory, I also want to mention how unexpectedly emotional I got during "All You Wanna Do". I was already familiar with the song from the soundtrack, and it was another source of ickiness for me. I loved the melody, which is catchy as hell, but I hated that I enjoyed a song about sexual assault as much as I did. It also felt weird that it was played with such a... brightness... to it?
Well, the stage performance was completely different. It was heartbreaking. I cried. The song itself was technically the same, but the emotion in the cast member's voice, as well as the staging and choreography during that song absolutely floored me.
For those that don't want to read the spoiler block above, suffice it to say my concerns were addressed and I'm happy with how the play handled itself and its characters.
Another thing I liked was how sharp the musical was. Some of this comes through in the Tiny Desk concert, where they trade off talking and have their big hit "moments" as a group, but it's way better on-stage. It was fast and precise all the way through.
One thing that the Tiny Desk can't capture is their energy. I actually found it a bit awkward to watch them stuck standing in place dancing during the video because it's so unnaturally contained. "Get Down" on stage was one of my favorite numbers for how much the cast worked the whole stage for the entire song, but in the Tiny Desk concert, where they all have to just stand there, it's not nearly as entertaining or compelling.
Nevertheless, I absolutely loved the show. My husband, who's not as into musicals as I am, started actively listening to the soundtrack after we went to see it. We were actually watching a YouTube show recently that had some trivia questions, and one of them was "Who was Henry VIII's sixth wife?" I was trying to rack my brain for knowledge from the musical so I could answer in time when my husband prompted me with "I'm the survivor" (from the opening song) to which I yelled out "Oh, CATHERINE PARR!" I would have never known that if not for SIX!
Managed to see the same cast as this Tiny Desk when they came through our local city. My wife and I both loved it and still are singing the songs months later!