averilburystedmunds: At Sixes and Sevens.

En route from Polpo to Six

My title indicates a state of utter confusion which describes my condition after the family theatre outing to see Six last Saturday. I think we were 13 at the Vaudeville Theatre [after a lunch party of 17] all in a state of pleasant anticipation. We have been going on annual outings for lunch in Soho followed by a West End musical since Tom was seven; he will be 30 in one month’s time! During that time, I have enjoyed and often loved, the musicals we saw. My latter confusion, plus stunned amazement, stems from the fact that I really hated the show while two others, shared my reaction. Most of the group thought it was fantastic while three, possibly four, flinched from the maximum volume pop singing and accompanying music. Physically, painful; visually, bright, sparkling, fast-moving, non-stop pop concert-style, gyrating attractive chorus girls-turned- solo singers/dancers/ twerkers who Never Left The Stage, did not use dialogue nor deviate from max pace and volume. Unsurprisingly, I later discovered online that the show’s originators had been students at Cambridge when they composed it. That explains the youthful concept and the ultra-confidence in pursuing it.

The Musical

Two of the Queens

Catherine of Aragon

To be fair, the mixed reactions may be generational; and partly, perhaps, a reflection of musical taste. Also it must be reported that the audience last Saturday, rose as one, to its feet in hommage at the end! Seated,

I felt stunned by the ear-splitting assault of the performance having longed for it to be over.

I have since found online opinions ranging from:

“The energy in the show is amazing. Such fun, great woman empowerment, got a standing ovation. I have seen at least 50 shows in the west end and this is in the top 5, real feel good.”

“Really good fun musical/Quite short but fantastic/We should see it again/All the performers were great

Geoffrey Chaucer
See below!

“Saw this in Woking, it was like being in a big nightclub. One of the girls in the audience had an epileptic seizure probably all the flashing lights and loud music. No warnings anywhere about this.”

“ With the gyrating and dubious lyrics not really one for the kids; with the lack of content not one for historians; and with poor diction, shambolic choreography, lacklustre performance and under whelming costumes; not even one for theatre goers. It totally missed the point of the significance of the wifes and how they changed history.”

Meanwhile Critics’ Reviews opined:

“SIX: HOLD ON TO YOUR HEADS, WITH CHEERS AND HUZZAHS! It has mass appeal, immediacy, enthusiasm, and an incredibly high sense of style: and it revels in what used to be called ‘girl power’ but can now more properly be described as simply, or not so simply, power.”

Mediaeval dice games like Hazard

There seems little to add though an explanation of the title might be of interest! We already know that ‘to be at sixes or sevens’ signifies complete confusion about some situation or topic. Interestingly, in use since the 1300s when originally it referred to a popular dice game, Hazard, where throwing a 6 or 7 meant risking one’s entire fortune. By the early 1600s it had come to mean “to take a careless risk” though by the mid to late 1600s, ‘to be at 6s and 7s’ was to be in a state of confusion.

A similar phrase, “to set the world on six and seven” is used by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde, dating from the mid 1380s and seems to mean “to hazard the world” or “to risk one’s life.” William Shakespeare uses a similar phrase in Richard 11, around 1595:

“But time will not permit: all is uneven,

Gilbert and Sullivan

And every thing is left at six and seven.”

The phrase is also used in Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera, HMS Pinafore, 1878, when Captain Corcoran, the ship’s Commander, is confused as to what choices to make in his life, and exclaims in the opening song of Act 11,

“Fair moon, to thee I sing, bright regent of the heavens,

Say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?”

And from the sublime to the ridiculous; the debut studio album of the Norwegian Gothic Metal band, Sirenia, was called, “At Sixes and Sevens” and was produced in Norway in 2001.