History gets a riotous remix: all the songs from the stage hit

Divorced, beheaded, live in concert. So runs the sly tagline of Six—musical theatre wunderkinds Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow’s all-conquering stage reimagining of the interior lives of Henry VIII’s infamous, doomed wives. And, fittingly, there’s a similar macabre cheek, and an almost vaudeville spirit, running through the nine numbers on this recording of the West End and Broadway hit. Part of this is the transgressive ballsiness of Moss and Marlow’s central conceit: an X Factor-style talent show in which these scorned Tudor women deploy different modes of female-fronted modern pop to tell their side of the story. Yes, the tuneful homages carry an audacious, knowing thrill—most notably German techno romp “Haus of Holbein” and “Don’t Lose Ur Head”, Christina Modestou’s ebullient, Lily Allen-ish kiss-off as Anne Boleyn. But there is depth and deft songcraft beneath the ribald punchlines. On “Heart of Stone”, Natalie Paris turns Jane Seymour’s hidden pain into a soaring, spine-tingling power ballad, while Aime Atkinson’s Katherine Howard-focused “All You Wanna Do” is all glitchy cabaret melodies and subversive, feminist wit.