The Japanese version of the pop-rock phenomenon about the six ill-fated wives caused a sensation in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. As that production now hits the UK, we go behind the scenes (and thrones)
A
singer and dancer in Japan, Marie Sugaya first heard about a musical featuring King Henry VIII’s wives through a friend on a cultural exchange in London. “She spoke of Six so highly that I thought if it were ever to come to Japan, I’d love to be involved. But it was a faraway idea, just a dream.”
Similarly, Airi Suzuki, an actor and “pop icon” famed across Japan, travelled to Britain to watch the show last year, purely as a punter. Neither Sugaya nor Suzuki imagined they would ever take to the same stage to perform the Tudor-era musical-cum-rock concert themselves. But they are part of an all-Japanese lineup of queens who are taking over Vaudeville theatre for a week-long run which producers think is the first of its kind: a West End show, translated into Japanese and performed in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as part of a sold-out tour, now brought back to the West End with a cast who sing in Japanese (with English captions).
It is the latest twist in the life of this feted musical “queendom”, originally arising out of the Edinburgh fringe of 2017, now a global phenomenon. The UK production was performed in Japan at the start of this year followed by its Japanese iteration.
