Noble Blood - The 'Six' Wives: An Interview with Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow of 'Six'

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

When Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow were students at Cambridge University, they co-wrote a musical about the six wives of Henry VIII. From Edinburgh Fringe to the West End to Broadway, 'Six' has become a global phenomenon. Dana speaks to Moss and Marlow about theatre, women in popular culture, and revisionist history.Support Noble Blood:— Bonus episodes and scripts on Patreon— Merch!— Order Dana's book, Anatomy: A Love Story— Sign up to join Dana on the Mary Shelley Pilgrimage in April Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. In 2017, two students at Cambridge University wrote a musical about the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The show began with performances at Edinburgh Fringe, and from there it went from something of an underground cult phenomenon to bona fide global hit. within just a few years, and that's accounting for the COVID shutdown that hit on what was supposed to be their opening night on Broadway. The musical Six is staged almost like a pop concert in which the six wives of Henry VIII, Catherine of Avergan and Bolin, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, done miniskirts, bustiers, heels and boots, and belted out individual

solos inspired by divas like Beyonce and Nikki Minaj. It's a loose interpretation of history. After all, the queens in real life might have had lovely singing voices, but I doubt that they could belt or dance, like the actors on Broadway and the West End. But the historical spirit of each of the numbers is accurate. They're subjective but valid interpretations of the histories of the doomed queens that center their agency and their own experiences. The show is especially exciting to me because I think that any time conversations about Tudor history take the mainstream spotlight,

it gets people excited about delving into the actual history. After all, people are able to enjoy infectiously catchy songs while at the same time, understanding that the real Anne of Cleves never wore fern. fishnets. I am so excited to be able to sit down virtually with the show's two co-writers, Toby Marlowe and Lucy Moss, and talk about history, theater, and the way we talk about history in the public discourse. The show came about when we were in our third year of uni, and the university's musical theater society wanted to take an original musical to the Edinburgh

a fringe festival. And I like applied to do that with like not an idea for a show, with the kind of like criteria for the show that I thought would get me the gig of writing it and not lose the society money, which is basically having a show that had famous subject matter. So people would, you know, look at it and go like, ooh, that looks something I recognize, something that had pop music because it's the best one. And something that played around with a form. And so like the songs came about in like an interesting way. natural way as opposed to like breaking into song because that it kind of alienate people from musical sometimes and also something that had a majoratively or all female cast because you know

there were lots of conversations happening at the time amongst our friendship group and in the media as well and in our degrees about like you know representation particularly you know of women in musical theatre and the kind of songs that they get and the kind of roles that they get and how often like the meaty funny charismatic parts are usually for boys and so you know, thought it'd be a good opportunity to, like, redress that and give our amazing, talented friends, some fun songs. Anyway, they gave me the gig, and they were like, okay, come up with an idea.

And then I was like, okay, what's a famous group of women? It was six-wise, Henry the eighth was the first one that came to mind. And then it was, okay, what's like a way of fitting that into an hour at the fringe with pop music in a way that the song was come about in an interesting way? And then that's where the pop ones idea came from. And then the second, I came up with that, I called Lucy. like, I want this wacky idea for a musical to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe. Do you want to write it with me? And he was like, yeah, okay. Sounds a bit crap, but let's give it to go. What were your

experiences or knowledge base when it came to the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth before you began writing? I'm sure in the UK, you probably learn a little bit more about it in school than we do in America. Yeah, as you say, in the UK, it's a kind of thing that you, at various points in your school career will be kind of taught about Henry the 8th and the six wives and everyone will know divorced beheaded died, divorce perheaded survive and kind of knows about ambolin being ahead of it. So it's sort of like a big like cultural moment, but it's also something that I feel like you kind of learn about when you're like six and then again when you're sort of 11 and then at some other point and then you forget all about it by the time you're growing up so you can only remember the kind

of like the key elements of it. And then whenever someone does go, oh yeah. And then it's sort of like, there was like breaking away from the Catholic Church. I was like, oh yeah. So it's sort of stuff that people kind of like remember on some level, but it's not kind of like, you know, right at the forefront for everybody. Lots of people are massive Tudor fans, but especially for myself, I didn't really know like loads about them as individuals or I couldn't really remember exactly what their significance was. However, at the time I was studying history and I was actually looking a lot at early modern, German visual culture. So kind of all the hands hold by and stuff that's in the show was kind of what I was focusing on my degree and also kind of feminist, revisionist history of that

period. So I was quite familiar with the reformation and the kind of like cultural background and the sort of historical background of that time and especially in terms of the sort of like scholarship that was happening at the time of writing in regard to that period. But it wasn't really anything to do with British history and the queens for me. You know, each of the queens in the musical have such a distinct personality and their song is such a distinct style, which was hardest for you to write and which was easiest, which came most naturally? Oh, that's a good question. With some of them, there were like parts of it that were really easy to write and then parts

with it are really hard. And I feel like maybe the song Get Down answers both of those things because the verses that came out like the quickest that we have written something and it was so fun and enjoy what we knew exactly what the vibe was going to be and we were like brainstorming these stupid puns and lyrics and rhymes. And then it all like came out really, really quickly because we knew it was going to be her, like, bragging about her riches. Get down if you haven't listened to the musical yet, which you absolutely should because it's available for streaming and go see it if you're anywhere near New York is the song that Anne of Cleves sings set post her divorce from Henry, bragging about her life as a single woman.

Yeah, yeah, and the verses of her being like, like, I want to go hunting, you know, eating pheasants, sipping on me, like all these things. And that kind of stuff was really, like, fun and came up really quickly. But then the choruses took us literally forever because we were like just massively overthinking of it. Okay, we know, we know this message of how like Henry's rejected her and like painted her into a corner, but now he's going to like, you thought of this faded flower, but I'm impacted with the roses. It was just taking forever. And then Lucy was revising like the library and you like, Toby, Toby, you said like trick-cha, profile picture. And I was like, there we go. That's it. That's it. That's it. Literally cracked it.

like a goddamn egg. And then from there, it would just, yeah, came up with the thing. Do you have any favorite songs? I know it might be like picking children, but do you have like a favorite deep in your heart? I think I have like favorites for different reasons. I feel like as a number and a piece of storytelling as a whole, when you see the show, Catherine Howard's song, all you want to do is my favorite in terms of the synthesis of all the different departments.

and also it feels like the place where the concept of it being a pop concert and there being stories told through pop songs, it feels like where that comes to fruition most because it sort of uses the repetitive structure of a pop song to kind of mirror this sort of cycle of abuse and change in perspective that Catherine Howard has through her life. And it also choreographically uses the visual storytelling of something like a sort of Britney Spears concert choreographically to then kind of tell this story. So it feels like that's sort of the best place where storytelling and the kind of concept of being a pop show kind of come together. But then in terms of like story, I think get down is one of my faves because it's like a really positive narrative,

someone who got to sort of just like succeed and it's really fun to sort of be like, oh, you've heard about this woman as somebody who had a really bad time. Actually, the narrative is all to do with like her relationship to Henry. And when you take Henry kind of out of it, he actually wasn't as relevant to her life as maybe she was to his. You get to see a really positive narrative be told on stage. But then musically, it's like, I don't need your love as, you know, when we were writing it, and you kind of feel like, oh, I've got this like voice and I know of this thing. I was like, this is my favorite song. It's always going to be my favorite song forever.

So, yeah, I don't know. I want to talk a little bit more about the Catherine Howard song that you mentioned, all you want to do, which is so brilliant. And I think recasts Catherine Howard, who sometimes dismissed, even by historians, just as sort of this frivolous girl who flirted and maybe deserved the fate of beheading that she got. But I think it was so powerful the way that you, recognize and reckon with the way that she was sexualized at the time, but also the way we sexualized Britney Spears as a 16-year-old. Was it always your intention or reinterpretation to

approach the subject matter that way? Or were you surprised the more you delve into the actual history? Like when you were learning about the history, were there aspects of her life that you were surprised to learn about? I think there were definitely aspects of all of their lives that we were surprised to learn about, especially because we didn't know much about them beforehand. But I have to say, I think that the idea of like redressing a historical wrong or redressing an imbalance or giving back the microphone to people who have been kept out of the spotlight for so long or whatever, that was kind of at the centre of the show and the idea of the show before we even decided, you know, before the six wives was even the thing or before it even was about them. It was kind of

this thing, as Toby says, we were sort of being like, you know, Toby applied with this criteria of being like, I want to do a group of like women kind of like taking the centre of the stage because we were talking so much about marginalisation of women's voices at the time. And similarly, both of our degrees, like, everything we were writing about was this kind of how to, like, redress who's been, like, written out of history and what we think of as this, like, important narratives or not just history, whose voices we haven't been listening to. So I think that, honestly, probably we, like, came to the subject of it with that intention without actually having ever engaged with what the preconceptions were, if that in any sense.

Were there any moments where you sort of purposefully recognized, like, okay, this may not be quite historically accurate, but we're going to make this tweak to serve the musical as a whole? Or did you try to stick to incredible historical accuracy throughout? I think with Anne Boleyn is a person with whom that's most resonates, because a lot of the way we interact with the queens are sort of, okay, this is how they've been seen and how can we subvert that? And the kind of conversation around Anne Boleyn is there's just so much hysteria around her, particularly from male historians and people writing narratives about Anne Boleynes. It's like the noise, the mythology around her is all to do with her.

It's just so inextricable from gendered kind of terms of her being this kind of like witch seductress. So cunning. Yeah, cunning. And it's like sort of basically we were like looking at that hysteria. We were like, what would be kind of like a funny way to subvert that and kind of like laugh at the intense speculation of her life? And we were like, well, maybe she doesn't mean to be kind of calculating, but everyone's reading that into her behavior.

And that was similarly like a thing where like something like that had happened to me at the time where someone sort of accused me if they were even nipped at. I was like, I wish I was that smart. I had no idea. just living my life sort of thing. But then like historically, when you actually like read about her, you know, she probably was really cunning. So I might call it charismatic. Some I call it kind of smart and like politically aware. Other people might call it sort of beguiling. Like whatever you want to, you know, however you want to frame it. So there's a kind of like thing where we're like,

oh, we sort of took one of the most like empowered, smart like women in history and sort of made her the spouse. He's like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing or whatever. That maybe is a place where we kind of like prioritized the historiographic discourse as opposed to the actual. historical truth that might have been. I mean, whatever that means. And just for listeners, the Anne Bolin song, the repeated chorus is, sorry, not sorry, what was I meant to do? Just this story of like a girl coming over from France to England and just living her life. And, you know, I think those two ideas can coexist. I like the idea that a musical can bring the conversation about Tudor history to the mainstream. People can sing along to catchy songs and then think, like,

okay well if I want to learn more about the actual history I can do more than listen to a three and a half minute song I can like go read a history book I know that COVID unfortunately put a slight damper on your original Broadway plans can you speak as to what that experience was like yeah gosh it feels a long time ago now yeah March 2020 unsurprisingly where we were over here in new york to open the show on Broadway. Yeah, and then it was kind of in the weeks leading up to it where like COVID was becoming a more persistent news story and people weren't talking about it and more and acting differently about it.

And I think, looking back on it, I think I was just putting it to the back of my mind. I mean, oh, it's a thing that were like past because I was so like tunnel vision about this Broadway open that we had. And then in the few days before, I just wouldn't know the day before we were meant to open. There was a good news story that came out about an usher who had been working at some theatres,

including the Six Theatts, who tested positive for COVID. I was like, wait, it's in New York, it's here, what's going on? Like, it's like on my doorstep. And I, do I have it? What's going to, what's going to open the show? We're not going to open the show? Like, what's going to?

Do we have the powers or not? Like, blah, and there's like, all these things. And then we were just told to, like, curb out our day as if we were going to open. Meanwhile, like, all the producers and all the people were having, like, 100 meetings, all the different Broadway leagues and mayors and various things. And then about like an hour and a half before we were meant to go to the red carpet. We found out that New York was shutting down that afternoon and all the theatres were going dark

and we weren't going to have an opening night. And then I was bit like, okay, well, that's good to know that we don't have to make that decision. That's been made for us, but it means this COVID thing is very serious. How can I get back home as soon as possible? How can I get my grandparents home who have flown out to New York?

Yeah, it all became a bit into logistical mode of getting back home in case that was going to be, know, some kind of international lockdown. A global pandemic or anything. Yeah. Lucy, is it true that you were in a car hearing about it on the radio as it happened? It's absolutely true. I was in, yeah, I was in a cab going to get my hair done.

And Governor Cuomo came on the radio saying, and then this was about like 2 o'clock or 1 o'clock or something, saying from tomorrow at 5 p.m., all meetings of over 500 people are going to be closed down. I was like, okay, so we're going ahead. Then it was like, except for Broadway, which will shut up from 5 p.m. tonight. And I was like, okay, and I actually got out of the cab and then was like, oh, I guess I don't need to get my hair done. Got back into another cab.

Oh, my God. I think also people maybe don't understand, like what was the process like going from Edinburgh Fringe to Broadway, which, spoiler alert, you did eventually open? What were sort of the steps involved, you know, for people who don't really know how theater works behind the scenes? Yeah, I mean, it kind of happened. And we had it as a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And, like, gradually throughout that month, various theatre-y people from London and different parts of the country were, like, coming to see the show and then giving us, like, business cards,

being like, let's have coffee and talk about your show. They were all from 1920s, New York. No, yeah, weird fact that even in London, everyone that works in theatre as a producer has that accent, and it always has a cigar in their mouth. It's a weird kind of, like, cultural thing. but um and then we kind of were like okay we're gonna wait till after the fringe because this is all very scary and because we weren't in the same place and so we were just like let's wait until we're back

and then a producer called kenny wax ended up coming to see the show when we did a home run back at Cambridge and then he was like come to my office next week for a meeting and then he was like I'm doing a western show over Christmas and there's a few Mondays where the show isn't on I'd like to do like a showcase of your show and we were like okay and then he was kind of joined forces with some other producers that we've met. And yeah, so then we did these showcases in this Western theatre. And that was kind of like the biggest jump was going from doing a student show at the fringe to then a few months later doing this like showcase production at a Western theatre. Where we like got paid. We were like, yeah. People were being paid

to do it. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was bizarre. And that's the kind of like the major leap that happened, I guess, because that went well and was well received. The producers were like, let's make an album. We're going to make a, we're going to make a, we're going to make it. And album. It's going to be huge. It's going to be huge. It's going to win the Grammy. And then so we did that.

And then that kind of was also us preparing to do a first professional UK tour. And then that ended up going to London for a bit. And then it was well received there. So then it went back to London and kind of set up shop in a theater there called the Arts Theater. And then from there, we then went to America and started the Chicago production. Then also a UK tour happened.

And then it went out into cruises. Then it went out into Australia. And then it all kind of gradually led to. to Broadway. And it all shut down. And it all shut down, yeah, as quickly as it came about. I mentioned a little earlier.

Both of my sisters are in Chicago. I'm in Los Angeles. They know that I love, you know, particularly British and French royal history. And they both saw it without me. And I've never been more heartbroken because I had been listening to the album for weeks at that point. And I was already obsessed with the show.

I'm curious, make any changes or did people ask you to make any changes for American audiences? So people were like, you know, obviously the question about the fore was like, are people going to get it? Are they going to like it? Like, what's going on? Like, it's the British story. Do people know anything about it? But kind of, as I said before, like, we didn't really know anything about the wives. Or we couldn't really remember what we had previously known. So the whole show is kind of written to sort of tell you what your quote unquote supposed to already know. But then also and then kind of engage with it.

So that was kind of one thing where we're like, okay, like it does actually give people the information that they need. And the other thing was when we kind of turned up here, it basically became clear that although, you know, the history is British, the like former pop concerts as sort of as American as can be. And actually, you know, in the UK it has to be like, how are you doing tonight? And everyone's like, yeah. And it's like, come on. We said, how you know?

They're like, oh, okay, we're allowed to do stuff. Whereas here, it's like the lights go down. It's like, wow. Yeah, it's like, divot, wah! So we were like, okay, they don't need to help with that. But in terms of, like, rewrites, it was mostly just tiny little things like colloquialisms, saying friends instead of mates, and there's a sort of reference to GCSEs, which are exams in English, that we changed just sort of a reference to PBS.

You know, there's things like that kind of are like small cultural things, but I think it's more surprising probably how little has to change than, like, what does have to change. I'm curious structurally, because the show is structured where every queen gets, her own song, her own sort of moment in the spotlight to rewrite her own history. And then you have one song where you discuss and explain Hans Holbein, the painter, going around and painting the princesses of Europe to present the portraits to Henry the eighth. What was the decision like to break form for, I mean, that song is a blast. It's one of my favorite songs in the show. But what was the decision like to say, okay, we're going to have these six songs and also the seventh song?

Well, it's because when we were originally planning it, what, like, the first idea from our first meeting was, oh, yeah, we should have, like, Hans Holbein be a character, and he can have his own, like, fashion house, and you can be just, like, camped German man. Wouldn't that be so fun? Ha, ha. Let's drop that down.

And then when we were kind of, like, in the early stages of planning, there were going to be, like, transitional songs, kind of in between their solos, kind of, like, you might have at a pop concert where, like, there's, like, an outfit change or going from different sets or whatever, and there's, like, transitional moments. And some more, like, like, group.

numbers and maybe some multi-rolling some other characters or maybe they're like backing vocalists who are the various children and they have a number about like being kids I don't know but like we didn't write that one sounds so good and then we kind of realized that in terms of like you know the time of the show and what we had to do a couple of group numbers to bookend the show and then like each having a solo was kind of like what we had time for but then it was coming apparent in rehearsals that there was a gap something extra was needed yeah we were we kind of kind of always wanted there to be a group number in the middle, like, after the three to sort of break up that, like, monotony of the, of the structure. And we'd also had this kind of, like,

transitional song ideas, Holbein that we'd really held onto from the beginning. So whilst we sort of shed those transitional moments, who were like, oh, God, we need to write a group number. We're like, well, why don't we have it be that, like, Hans Holbein-1? And then we're like, oh, and then why don't we make it like a statement about, like, beauty standards and la-la-la, like, oh, okay, that'll do, like, bash it out, right? Half an hour off for good, everyone, like, do this song, and it's still in, it's an hour on Broadway. She, like, wrote it during the rehearsals and just being like, oh, yeah, come on, like, more brands with, like, inches and kind of thing. And then now it's the being performed in Broadway, they say, which is so hilarious.

I love also the costume choices. I think that the costumes are so distinct. They have nods to period details, but they feel so modern. What was that conversation like developing the costumes? It's just super fun conversation with Gabby Slade. Our amazing designer. just about what the palette of pop star inspirations were going to be, but also like the ways in which we could get Tudor imagery into them. Because I mean, the whole thing, as we've said, is like hybrid between like Tudor history and like pop concert. One detail that stands out is that Jane Seymour, her dress has sort of boning

that looks like the famous Tudor half timber houses. It looks like Tudor housing. I love that. That's my favorite thing as well. I'm like, people don't, you know, people don't pick up on that as much. But I really enjoy that. And also the silhouettes of the portraits, the two Queen Scop. headed have these like chokers. There's all sorts of like referencey things, but they all kind of

are inspired by, they're not like model. Actually, what's interesting is early on, we kind of like, the initial designs felt more modeled off singular pop stars. And then it sort of felt a little bit like tribute acty kind of vibes. And we were like, that's not, like, they aren't actually Adele or whatever. They're kind of like a palette of them. So Gabby honed down to make them kind of like have elements of different pop star inspirations to kind of make them, you know, their own identity. I don't know if this is true, but I read Toby that you filled in on the West End. in the role of Catherine Parr, is that true? All the rumors are true.

Yeah, I did, yeah. It was this time in the summer of 2019 where there was a lot of cast members were, like, injured, and there was like illness going around, even pre-pandemic, can you believe? And it was getting to this point, like, a few weeks before where it was like, okay, gosh, like, you know, it's not looking go, so Lucy and the directing team

came up with contingency plans of like, okay, well, like, if this people, then we'll do, like, a version that are, like, at stools and we have music standard, like, this kind of staging of someone can't move their leg or just, like, all this stuff. And the very bottom of this giant document was like,

and if we really can't find anyone else to fill in and we can't do anything else, we'll see if Toby's free, lo, as if, ha, ha, ha. And then, like, lo and behold, a week later. I'm like, chilling at home. I get a phone call from the stage manager being like, are you free today? And I was like, yeah, I'm why?

And she was like, can you come into the West End and play Catherine Parr for two performances? And I was like... Yeah, just casually on the West End. I know. And I was like, leading up to I'd be like, you know, excited about of attention.

I was like, oh, that'd be like a fun day. And then, I let you put the phone down. I was like, ah! And then like, Lucy was like on a play. And I was like, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. And you were like, I'm about to take off. But, you know, just like, I was like, I'm so stressed what do. And she was like, I think the cast are going to be more stress that like the writers

coming in to perform with them. So maybe like, don't make it about you. I think you've been too generous to me. I think I just went, don't make it about you. Yeah. I don't think I was being so diplomatic. Yeah. Did you know the choreography?

Uh-huh. Well, I knew parts of it. But luckily we just. a concert performance. But, you know, I do rock a get-down dance break. We all, like, stood in a row and also, like, Genesis, who's on the album, she filled in for Frived of Cleaves, and she was amazing. They put us in, like, adapted band costumes and these, like, tight, tight little leather

short shorts and just, like, inappropriate for the first couple of rows. But, yeah, but then we just, like, stood in a row and, like, I forgot all the words, so thank God we had music stands. I was like, in the moment, the lights are on you. It's quite difficult. I was like, I was like, these monologues, it's really tonally hard. to land. I've got to like, you know, change the mood, but also make people laugh gently. How do I do that? That sounds like a static comedian. This show's really difficult.

Wow. These performers... These writers really did. Yeah, about these writers. We know what they're doing, I guess. Yeah, so it was ultimately quite fun. And it was what was really fun was that was a nice chance, like, hang out with the cast, a lot of whom had been in the show for ages and we hadn't seen for a long time, we would, like, gallivanting around. So yeah, it's quite fun being part of the One thing I also love about this show is you have an all-female backup band, which I don't know if I've seen on Broadway before. Was that a decision you made from the start? Yeah, big time. As soon as we were able to have band on stage, when we first did the kind of like production of it that we wanted to do, it was like right at the forefront because, you know, in the same way that at the time women was underrepresented on stage.

Female musicians especially was super underrepresented. So we were like, let's make them part of the show and, yeah, put them on stage so that you can really see the talent that's happening, these kind of like incredible musicians who are owning it. Really rocking out as the ladies in waiting, as the show says. I'm curious, how do you think the show has either changed or been part of this conversation of how we teach and talk about history? It's a great question. It's hard for us, I think, to have a perspective on the outside impact of it because I still am sort of like surprised when people have heard of it or like So it's kind of hard to gauge but I was actually in my cousin's wedding over the summer

And one of her friends was like a teacher at a school in like Midlands and was the history teacher and was sort of like talking about how like it really got people kind of engaged with like particularly young people and young girls, like, engaged with history and, like, you know, like getting excited about these, like, narratives and stuff. I think in terms of feminist, revisionist history, like, ideas of, like, redressing historical and imbalances, I think that those things can be quite, like, lofty and quite, like, the preserve of sort of, like, quote, like, high art stuff. And actually, like, I think that what maybe has been kind of cool about six is that it's, like,

brought it into this commercial space where people are going for a good time and then kind of like come away thinking about that stuff. And it being presented in a way that's hardly difficult to understand. It's like really like accessible and like makes sort of sense that you don't really have to like know loads of that history to engage with it, I guess. Yeah. There's been like a few occasions where we've like had feedback from like school trips that have come to see it, especially early on. And when students are like after the show, they're like, oh, I want to like go. home and like look up Catherine Parr

and like look up like more information about like what happened to her and like what she did and what she achieved. And or like when people have like you know tagged us in like songs that they're writing about like other historical figures in the style of six like six backing track and kind of like with this intention of being like you think you

understand this thing from this way but like here's like another way of looking at it. And so I think any person that leaves the show with like inspired to like question things and question different perspective on things and question how different stories can be told and like who and I'll hope you telling them affects that I think is like you know really cool and nice I love that that's so well said quick question has there been any celebrity or like star come to the show or talk about the show that left you fully starstruck oh my gosh wait well okay one

My one was when Amy Sherman Palladino and Daniel Palladino, the creators of Gilman Gars and Mrs. Mabel came to see the show, and I was sitting next to them. And I was also in the very... Was she wearing a hat? That's important. Of course she was wearing a hat. That's the first thing that I meant to her presence.

It wasn't the top hat, but it was a kind of like cool, like, peaked fairy thing. I think it was velvet purple. I was like, I'm obsessed. Anyway, but yeah, I was like sitting down and like her to get a little bit of the same thing. up to let them walk past. I was like, oh my God, that is. And I was who sat next to them for the whole show, and obviously I was just like listening to their reactions. That was pretty cool. And then I talked to them at the end, and they'd seen it already in London. And they'd come back and they were also coming to the opening, but they decided to like come to a preview.

It was wild. So that was cool. But you have fun as well. Similar experience actually. Oh, right. Yeah. I was thinking that was a different run. It's like, because the first one that came to mind was when I was actually like, my cousin came to visit me in London. And she was like, can we go through six? I was like, yeah, we spent the day having like, like, you know, like a boozy lunch. And then we, like, went along to go and see six. And then she, like, walked into, like, oh, where I got our tickets, like, walked. And, like, sat down.

I looked at the left of me. And it's RuPaul. And off there, like, sobering up, like, oh, my God, I'm not you to RuPaul. He's watching six. What's going on? And then, like, and that was really wild. And he seemed to have a good time? I think so, yeah.

Yeah, and, like, did pictures on stage at the end. And, right. Yeah. really, really sweet. But yeah, what was really cool was when Tim Minchin went to go see it in Australia because he is like our, like, biggest, or like one of our biggest, like, writing influences, especially in terms of like song structure and like comedy and music. He's so, so, so influential on our writing process and truly, truly obsessed with him. And then when we found out that he went to go see it in Australia, it was like, really like, oh my gosh, my gosh. And he like sent us

email afterwards. That was the loveliest thing. that I've ever read in my life really like complimenting like writing and I was like oh my god well it existed wasn't for you and so that was that was like that was cool because it was like someone

that you know really part of this but yeah like the fabric of all the show was so him liking it was really special so for people who go to see the show what's the feeling that you hope they come away with I feel like the ultimate one is being like uplifted and like, I suppose like empowered as well are kind of some of the leading ones.

Because obviously it's like a lot of the story is actually kind of like heavy and the actual like what happened or whatever. It's as less sort of being like, oh, I want people to be like, oh wow, I must go and read loads about these characters, even though, you know, that would be great as well. It's more about being like them sort of seeing the characters realize this kind of state of like impoundment and kind of taking back control of their narrative and they've been kind of like written out of it for and kind of, yeah. So people feeling uplifted and, like, positive about smashing the patriarchy.

Yeah, I'd say, like, yeah, like uplifted and that they've had, like, a really, like, fun time. You know, especially now more than ever. But also, I think, a few times where we've heard feedback from people that have come and that have said that they felt seen people on stage. and I think that's really The Cockles is my cold, cold heart. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, so so much for taking the time out. I am such a huge fan.

Toby Marlowe and Lucy Moss, the co-writers and creators of Six The Musical, now on Broadway, but there's an album that you can stream no matter where in the world you are. Thank you so, so much. Thank you. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio

and Grimmin Mild from Aaron May. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by Rima Ilkeali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called called Against All Odds, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford.

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