Six

Under green lighting, thank you, talking about Beetlejuice closing here in the West End.

Prior to that, we were talking about Six: The Musical closing on Broadway, which feels quite proximal in many ways to today's news that & Juliet, are we pink again? Did we make it? We got there, is going to be concluding its admittedly very impressive run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in the earliest days of 2027, around the same time that Six will be closing at the Lena Horne.

And obviously both of those shows originated here in the UK.

In fact, they both originated regionally in the UK before heading to the West End, subsequently to Broadway.

The long-running musical comedy, and in the current landscape, to even be able to call yourself a long-running musical on Broadway, that is an achievement right now, uh, will play its final performance at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre January 3rd, 2027.

This is a very popular time for closures.

Six is shutting up shop around the same time.

Beetlejuice here in London also.

And then as for Satines, we saw Meg Donnelly from Zombies, JoJo, Ashley Loren, Solea Pfeiffer, Ariana Rosario, Courtney Reed, and the reigning Satine, Kelsey Watts, who, by the way, I feel like I must mention because I don't think, [laughs] I think I totally just bulldozed through the Kelsey Watts of it all and was only talking about Aaron Tveit.

Kelsey Watts, who you may know from Six: The Musical, she was our final Satine, so I got to see her twice in the performances that I went to this past week, and she was unbelievable.

Her acting, her vocal abilities, she was a flawless Satine.

I just feel like I have to say that because I've seen good Satines and I've seen great Satines, and she is one of my greats.

He did all these really terrible things on a basic human level, and now I've seen his reputation fall and the reputation very much of the six queens rise.

There's been, like, this parallel, his falling, their rising, and you can see that in the different kinds of sort of public history products that I've been involved in over the last 20 years.

About halfway through my time, I got to work on a, a BBC series that was called Six Wives with Lucy Worsley, and there was this huge row about the title because the BBC said, "Well, I don't think anyone's going to watch it if Henry VIII isn't in the title."

Wow, okay.

That's what it was, that's what it, what it was like back then.

But two of the people who did watch it were students at Cambridge University at the time, and they thought this story would make a really great musical.

And they wrote a musical that's now taken the world, and it's just called Six.

So I guess over 20 years I've seen Henry VIII to The Six Wives, and then just to Six.

And we've got a whole range of new resources for schools, you know, teacher packs.

We've filmed videos with the cast of Six, the musical.

Oh, yeah.

Because

they...

Six of, you know, they really blazed a trail with this and put the focus very firmly on the women.

And as a super fan, I've seen it 12 times.

I can tell you.

Killing your wife is awful, isn't it?

Um, have you seen Six?

Six is involved in this campaign.

So this, yeah, so anyone who doesn't know...

Well, actually, go, go ahead, Becky.

What, if anyone doesn't know what Six is, what, what is it?

So Six is a musical that, uh, actually started at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Mm-hmm.

And that doesn't necessarily get totally reciprocated when it comes over.

Like, oh, well, Six is going to be awesome because it ran on the West End.

No, not the same.

People hold Broadway to

Actually, we have a few

funerals to get to.

Six, the musical, has announced it will be closing on Broadway.

This doesn't really come as a surprise, especially if you've been listening to this podcast over the last few months.