SIX Partners with National Portrait Gallery for 'Six Lives' Exhibit and Summer Events

The hit musical sensation SIX is partnering this summer with the National Portrait Gallery for a series of events linked to the new exhibition Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens, which is running now until 8 September.

On Wednesday 3 July, SIX creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss took part in a lively panel discussion with educator and historian Caroline Marcus as part of a schools history study day at the gallery.

On Saturday 6 July, there will be a unique opportunity offered to combine attendance at an interpreted performance of SIX at the Vaudeville Theatre at 4pm, followed by a Deaf-led BSL tour of Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens at the National Portrait Gallery at 6pm. . The BSL tour for D/deaf and hard of hearing visitors led by Alan Murray will explore spotlighted works in the exhibition and will be a social, informal experience where group dialogue is encouraged.

On Tuesday 9 July, secondary school pupils will have the chance to attend a unique history-focussed careers day, including a panel discussion with the team at SIX the Musical. Including current cast member Hannah Lowther  will also have the opportunity to work with the Gallery's conservation specialists to use a range of tools and techniques to make discoveries about the portraits of the queens. 

On Friday 12 July, SIX the Musical’s visionary costume designer, Gabriella Slade, will take part in a panel discussion Page, Stage and Screen: Dramatising Six Lives, alongside varied creative voices who have all taken inspiration from the queens’ lives for storytelling, chaired by historian Tracy Borman. This panel discussion will explore different perspectives on the experience of adapting the biographies of the queens for storytelling in musicals, operas and plays, novels, film and television.

On Friday 26 July, the National Portrait Gallery is hosting a special one-off Tudor-inspired SIX ‘One of A Kind’ late opening. The event will open with a 10-minute costumed performance from the current West End cast, ahead of an evening of singing, dancing and a top-to-bottom Tudor takeover. Visitors are encouraged to wear their best historical garb and glitter-covered attire. The evening will be filled with creative workshops including costume-handling sessions; costumed life drawing; a DJ set from Drag performer Timberlina and a dance workshop with Six’s resident director and choreographer. 

Finally on Monday 2 September, there will be a free Youth Late from 7 – 9pm aimed at young people from 18 – 25, with live performances, music, workshops, herstory tours, talks, fashion and things in multiples of six (naturally). Dressing up encouraged, with prizes on the night for the best-dressed Queens. Everything on the evening is free, including refreshments, snacks as well as entrance to the exhibition. 

Producer Kenny Wax said, “No offence to history teachers or university lecturers up and down the country, but one could argue that Marlow and Moss’s brilliant retelling of the stories of the wives of Henry VIII has done more for popularising Tudor History, and specifically the Ex Wives, than anything else in the past 50 years. Re telling ‘theirstory’ in a modern vernacular has made this slice of history more relevant than ever, and will hopefully enable the aforementioned educators to lean on a door which is rather more open than it used to be. Permanently sold-out theatres in the West End and all over the UK attest to this, together with the 1 billion streams that the shows music has now racked up.

We couldn’t be more delighted that the National Portrait Gallery has partnered with SIX on the series of events in tandem with the live exhibition. We are sure that it will be a great success and special thanks to my dear friend Caroline Marcus who has championed various collaboration across the Royal Palaces and Museums since the show first opened six years ago.”