Tudor queens become rock princesses in Chichester

Playing Catherine of Aragon is Chloe Hart who was last in Chichester seven years ago in Damsel In Distress – the last thing Catherine of Aragon is going to be, despite Henry VIII’s best efforts. This is Catherine of Aragon infused with all the sass of Beyonce.

“I joined the show in March and it has just been amazing,” Chloe says. “It has been the favourite thing I've done in my career so far. There's just something about the whole female empowerment thing and in the relationships that we have between each other. We go to different places around the country and the demographic that the show attracts is just vast, young people, old people, male and female, just everyone. It is a show that lets absolutely everyone in. I think the great thing is that everybody knows the subject matter. Everybody knows something about the queens or has their own preconceptions about them but the lovely thing about the show is that it makes them human and it means that everybody can relate to them rather just thinking of them as just portraits on a wall.”

The winner of the 2022 Tony Award for Best Original Score, the 2022 WhatsOnStage Award for Best West End Show and a Gold Disc-winning album, the show allows the six wives of Henry VIII take to the mic to tell their tales, remixing 500 years of historical heartbreak into an 80-minute celebration of 21st-century girl power. The cleverness of it all is that each of the queens is matched up to a couple of pop princesses – though for the uninitiated it hardly matters if you can't tell your Adele from your Beyonce.

“Even though the characters are based on these pop stars, we are all completely encouraged to bring a lot of our own selves into them as well. I play Catherine of Aragon and she is based on Beyoncé originally… well at least in the show! But I like to think I bring something a bit more geeky to her and a bit of a maternal instinct as well as all the sass of Beyoncé. She's just very strong and very powerful. She opens the show and she sets the framework for these strong women who are going get their own voice and she's great fun to play. And each of the queens is so different. Ann Boleyn is a bit more rock chick. She's based on Avril Lavigne and Lily Allen, the rocky spicy stars. I really didn't know what I was going to be given. I was just wanting to be part of the show in any capacity but I thought perhaps that I might be given Jane Seymour because I tend to sing the ballads but actually the more I've done Catherine of Aragon the more I can see why they gave her to me. She is so different to anything I've done before but I feel I can understand the role. I’m the oldest of the queens and I feel I can give Catherine of Aragon that maternal feel.”

As for whether theatre is now completely back to normal, Chloe admits it's a little difficult to tell because SIX is a show that's always going to get good crowds.

"We always do really really well but I think there are probably still people that are maybe not putting their money into shows in quite the way they used to because of the cost of living crisis and maybe because of losing money through Covid. I don't think anybody is concerned about actual Covid now when they come to the theatre but maybe more concerned about the costs.”

Tickets from the CFT.