Education is Britain is an under-appreciated system of modern learning, empowering hundreds of thousands of the youngest people in our society to begin their lifelong journeys. Whether it’s four-year-olds taking their first steps into their Reception classes, or the PhD student tidying up their dissertation at the end of their course, the breadth of education in this country is one of the most well-known across the globe. However, the system does have its challenges. From declining teacher numbers to declining subjects, increased behavioural issues and the fallout from the lost learning during Covid, our education system faces challenges it has never faced before. But are the solutions to these problems staring us in the face? Have the solutions been around, in many cases, longer than the education system itself has been? Are the ways around this issue ready to be implemented as soon as we open our eyes to them? And are they waiting in one of the most unlikely of places? The answer, may be waiting on stage, behind a velveteen (or, if you will, purple) curtain.
In recent years, and particularly during lockdown, we’ve all turned to new forms of entertainment to get us through, which has led to a surge in popularity for a select few media pieces (on top of their already high popularity). We were all enamoured by Netflix’s Stranger Things, the lure of The Child, Grogu (colloquially, Baby Yoda) in The Mandalorian and the unusual drama of Tiger King. But there was also a surge in the popularity of Hamilton, the musical about the American founding father Alexander Hamilton, a recording of which was available on Disney+. When the pandemic slowed and theatres reopened, it was widely attended in its re-opening weeks, alongside another smash-hit musical, SIX, both telling reimagined history to its audiences.
Now that all sounds well and good; after long lockdowns, people returned to their favourite shows, had a great time and they all lived happily ever after. Right? Well, yes. But what if there was more to it than that? Since reopening, the theatre industry has been struggling to draw audiences, but SIX and Hamilton appear to be among a small group of exceptions, which even to this day commonly see sold-out audiences night after night in the West End, on tours and on Broadway (SIX was actually due to open on Broadway for the first time on the night the theatres in New York City were closed). What is it about these shows that kept people coming back? And given the serious issues facing both theatre and education in 2023, do they each hold the solutions to some of each other’s problems?
In writing this piece, I spoke to experts in history, education, and in some cases, musical theatre, principally Dr Jessica Bradley and Mr Morgan Robinson. Dr Bradley is a member of academic staff in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, and is the programme director of the BA Education, Culture and Childhood course. In university teaching since 2005, Dr Bradley initially worked at the University of Leeds in widening participation for languages, and completed her PhD through looking at street theatre in Slovenia and the U.K. She has been teaching at Sheffield for four and a half years. Morgan Robinson is also a member of the School of Education and is a PGDE History tutor. After teaching for several years around Sheffield, getting into the profession through the Teach First programme and spending time as a Head of History, he began teaching at the university in August 2022, as the PGDE history tutor, as well as for undergraduate and postgraduate modules.
“All you ever Hear and Read about”
The British education system is one of the highest regarded schooling systems in the world. Britain is famous for our (love them or hate them), high-end, private schooling & educational institutions including Harrow, Eton, Oxford and Cambridge. It is common to hear about international students from across the world coming to Britain at almost all levels for a ‘British education’. Whilst the quality here isn’t necessarily as high as in other parts of the world, British education is consistent, highly regarded and a renowned system that is respected globally.
But British education does have its own challenges. Besides political debates on aspects from funding to fee-paying schools to tuition fees, and of course the Covid pandemic, British education, has unique challenges, particularly in optional subjects. In primary school and Key Stage 3, all students have to be delivered prescribed content in a set list of subjects, regardless of location or school type. When you get to GCSE-level however, students can choose which subjects they choose to sit, besides a few core subjects, which means from year to year, the number of students taking each subject varies.
History is one subject which is optional, and in the 2022/23 GCSE results, was found to be the fifth highest studied subject, with the top four all being subjects (or variations of) which must be studied at GCSE – Double science, Maths, English and English literature. But this figure is remarkably consistent, sitting at around 30% of GCSE students for the past 15 years. Whilst this is hardly a bad thing (on the contrary, being the highest non-mandatory GCSE subject is a strong achievement), it means that around 70% of students are either unable or unwilling to study history past Key Stage 3, yet a lot of young people are more historically aware than they have ever been and will have periods of the world’s history they either particularly enjoy, or want to learn about. Yet this hasn’t been reflected in GCSE uptake figures. Is this simply due to the subject itself, or is the way that it’s taught playing its part to drive away students?
Mr Robinson didn’t want to generalise or oversimplify things too much, but broke down the current state of history teaching in schools briefly: “There’s been a general advance of the historical enquiry model into history departments in the last 15 years, with many progressive schools opting for this approach – units of work driven by a genuine model [of] historical enquiry which students engage in and address – basically a way of studying a period of time and topic whilst also practicing and engaging in the academic discipline of history in a meaningful way, as opposed to a much more traditional approach of simply ‘learning the history’. However in the last 10 years, there’s been the rise of schools modelling themselves on the strict, non-excuses, high standards and aspirations, neo-conservative model, which… means a return to a form of traditional history teaching…emphasis on the primary importance of knowing the past, as opposed to the progressive approach with focuses more (though not at all entirely) on knowing the methodologies and processes of the discipline of history…Thirdly you’ve got some schools with history departments which…could fairly be seen to be a blend, with some of the worst aspects of both the other two approaches”.
“I’ll stand the test”
As well as a changing system for teaching history, general methods of teaching are changing too. Following the pandemic and the rise of online and distance learning methods, the ways in which teachers are sharing and presenting content to their students has been adapting. For some, this is a great opportunity to embrace the latest iteration of educational evolution, but for others, it’s a further departure and distancing from the methods they think have the best results. Many people will be familiar with the teacher-centred approach, whereby the teacher is the expert in the room who imparts knowledge onto their students for them to absorb, recall and regurgitate for examinations. Whilst this method has, and always has enjoyed, its backers, a significant contingent prefer more student-centred or collaborative approaches, such as group work, discussions, the implementation of Bloom’s taxonomy and a raft of other approaches which redistribute the attention in the classroom.
Dr Bradley explained how she has always favoured creative and participatory methods for teaching: “In a classroom, everyone can participate. And [languages] participation changes with the world. With media such as K-Pop, engagement with cultural texts and anime, not being able to understand something no longer has to be a barrier”. She also explained how with our regimented system of teaching to the exams, there’s a “gap between what’s taught and people’s everyday lives”, and that educators may have to “think outside of schools” to harness attainment and enjoyment within schools. Likewise, Robinson stated that “students need a blend of methods”, and that “there is huge hubris and folly in the idea that there’s one approach that works to the exclusion of all others. Kids need some variety alongside consistency of routines”.
“Get down”
As mentioned previously, history is not a rapidly declining subject, quite the opposite. It’s proven to be quite consistent over the past decade. And yet that, in itself, is part of the issue. The uptake of history qualifications at GCSE level has become stagnant, despite increasing awareness of our own, and others’, history. And whilst not facing serious declines like other subjects, particularly in the creative arts, for many it’s just another subject that they find themselves taking for their exams. Why is it that more people aren’t choosing to study history?
As someone who didn’t take history herself, my own experiences were due to several reasons. Initially, it was simply because geography was something I preferred. For my options, due to the pathway I had been put on as a result of grades, I had a binary choice between history and geography. I could have chosen to do both through using another of my options, but it would have meant sacrificing another subject, in my case computer science or design and technology. It is often seen that history and geography are placed into this binary choice, which may be a huge factor in relatively stagnant history uptake. Secondly, all of the history teachers I had up until that point never made me want to keep being taught by them. One of them took an active disliking towards me, another taught badly, and the third gave up teaching our class partway through year 8 because of the class’s behaviour. Given that the teaching I was receiving in geography was at a good level, and there was no teaching in history or passionate staff, it was an easy decision. Finally, the GCSE history content and structure was unappealing. It was presented to us, rightly, as very source-based, essay subject, with lots of learning of facts, names, dates and places. As a scientist, I much prefer to learn about processes, subjects with logical successions and quantitative data, rather than qualitative. Altogether, this was crucial in me not studying history past year 8. These sentiments have been echoed many times, by many different people, which indicates an underlying issue, not necessarily with history itself, but the subject of history.
So, history as a subject has become stagnant and unchanging, yet history as a field is still quite well appreciated. We have an education system that works but doesn’t fully shine as it could. And a beloved industry struggling with relatively low footfall and the aftershocks of a pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. It paints a bleak picture. But it doesn’t have to. How can we solve these fundamental issues in practical, imaginative ways? How can we work across our society to solve such diverse problems? And what people have the ability to change the perceptions of a subject, revitalise teaching and work to help the theatre industry all at the same time?
I believe that the answer doesn’t lie with people, but with queens. The queens. The queens of SIX.
“We’re SIX”
SIX was created by two students at the University of Cambridge, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017, the musical tells the story of the six wives of Tudor King, Henry VIII. Beginning with the ensemble number ‘Ex-Wives’, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr each introduce themselves to us, as we recount our current perceptions of each of them individually. In the show, the queens have come together to form the girl group SIX, but ahead of their performance are unable to decide which of them should lead the band. They decide the only fair way to determine this is through a singing competition, each focusing on why their experience with Henry VIII was the worst of them all.
Beginning with the gold-clad Catherine of Aragon, we hear about a queen who married Henry and was continuously ignoring his adulterous behaviour and illegitimate children with other women. She recalls how he wanted to send her to a convent and sought a divorce due to his eyes for another, specifically Anne Boleyn, and Aragon’s inability to provide him with a male heir in her solo ‘No Way’. Following Aragon is the aforementioned Boleyn. With her characteristic green outfit, Anne Boleyn is shown to be a slightly wilder, impulsive character, who is willing to break the rules for short-term gain. Her song ‘Don’t Lose Ur Head’ follows her tumultuous time with the monarch, from before marriage to her execution, covering the time she spent living with both Henry and his current wife Catherine of Aragon, the formation of the Church of England in order to marry Boleyn, and her downfall when she began to emulate her husband’s adulterous ways.
Moving to the only ballad of the musical, ‘Heart of Stone’ by the white-boddiced Jane Seymour brings the pace down for the most heartfelt of all of the songs in SIX. Having died during childbirth of Henry’s son, Edward, Seymour’s powerful piece details what life may have been like for her had she survived, and the life she sought to build with Henry despite his behaviours, as “the only one he truly loved”. Following a brief intermission from the disco-like ‘Haus of Holbein’, it’s Anna of Cleves’ turn to take to the stage. As a queen with a very short marriage to the king as she “didn’t look as good as [she] did in [her] pic”, Cleves’ song is a statement of her power and happiness that her experience wasn’t that bad overall, having been given an annual allowance, as well as a palace following her divorce. As a deep, low-beat song, ‘Get Down’ gives her an aura of deep power, further galvanised by her striking red costume.
Katherine Howard is next to sing, with her pink outfit and ponytail characterising this queen in the show’s most revealing costume. Executed at the age of 20, she details her life of being used for sexual gain by various men, including her music teacher and a courtier from very young ages, herself claiming “he was 23, and [she] was 13, going on 30”. In the longest and one of the most heart-breaking songs in the show, ‘All You Wanna Do’ slowly sees her descent into despair as she realises just how much she has been used as an object by the men in her life, as more and more of the hands of her fellow queens envelope her body as the song goes on. Finally, is Catherine Parr, with her song ‘I Don’t Need Your Love’ following her experience until the death of the king, with her acting as his nurse for much of this time. This song is an empowerment number, detailing everything Parr would have wanted to say to her late husband, with each of the other queens joining as the song progresses, showing her independence and power she, herself holds. Throughout the show, Parr is repeatedly shut down by the other queens for expressing her confusion as to why the queens are all working against each other, eventually helping them realise that her actions are a personification of hundreds of years of patriarchal dominance, evaluated quite simply by Anne Boleyn: “Since the only thing we have in common is our husband, grouping us is an inherently comparative act and as such unnecessarily elevates a historical approach ingrained in patriarchal structures”. The queens abandon their plans to choose a leader, before coming together to perform ‘Six’ and ending out in party-like anthem ‘The MegaSIX’.
SIX, since its initial run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, has seen long-running West End and Broadway runs, at the Vaudeville Theatre and Lena Horne Theatres respectively, as well as several U.S. tours, a U.K./International tour, as well as Korean, Polish, Canadian & Hungarian productions. The musical has quickly become a smash hit, with a recent WhatsOnStage poll placing SIX as the 13th most popular musical of all time, above classic shows including Miss Saigon, Into the Woods and The Sound of Music. Theatres showing SIX are often completely sold out, in some cases months before performances. SIX is a common sight at musical theatre celebrations and is often cosplayed for musical theatre fans, with four of the top 10 homemade costumes at MusicalCon 2023 coming from this show. But why has SIX proven so popular in such a short space of time? And what can we understand about this that may help us improve education in the U.K.?
“Globally Revered”
SIX, whilst becoming an iconic piece of theatre, has already spawned a small collection of research and commentary into its concepts and messaging. Dr Bradley explained to me that “SIX has become a massive cultural moment, due to empowerment from the wives’ perspectives, the costumes and the diverse casts in these roles”. A paper written by Schrader (2020) of Pennsylvania State University has evaluated the musical in terms of its feminist and empowering messages, as well as public memory of the queens, helping to illustrate the impact this piece of theatre has. Similarly, Martínez Jiménez (2022) of the University of the Balearic Islands has detailed the connections of SIX to second-, third- and fourth-wave feminism, and the #MeToo movement. As well as this, a range of connections to previous literature, historical references and other information sources are widespread with SIX, helping to further illustrate this musical’s reach beyond an enjoyable piece of theatre.
SIX is not the only musical to have received academic research following its success. The hit Lin-Manuel Miranda musical Hamilton has also received coverage from intellectuals around the world following its explosion of popularity in the mid-2010s. Dr Bradley herself is seeking to write about the intersection between Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work and language learning, with a large community in New York City (the setting for Miranda’s musical In The Heights) being heritage Spanish speakers, many being bilingual as a result, and how shows such as this may help facilitate language learning among young people. She explained how Hamilton “is a great way to teach in a multi-disciplinary way”, with its “creative artistic license and critical retelling on issues such as social justice, race, slavery and diversity”.
“I think we can all Agree, I’m the 10 amongst these 3’s”
SIX and Hamilton are receiving academic attention simply because they are masterpieces of theatre – it’s uncommon for theatrical composers to be analysed widely in scientific literature, especially with only a single show to their name. But SIX’s popularity cannot go unnoticed. It has quickly shot to widespread recognition, the likes of which has taken many other shows decades, or in some cases centuries, to reach. So, what is it that makes this musical so popular?
Aside from the catchy songs and colourful costumes, Robinson thinks that it might be due to SIX’s challenge of “popular frustration with having studied Henry VIII as ‘the man (centre stage) who had wives (after-thought)’, as opposed to the Tudor world more generally”. He went on to say that the concept “seems to tap into a seam in pop culture which celebrates diversification of history content, and in particular the history of women and their experiences. It’s a deliberate and obvious intentional decision to refocus and reframe the Tudor period through the experiences of women who have otherwise been treated as the backdrops and objects of Henry’s whims and caprice”.
Dr Bradley concurred, adding that “the subversion of what is learnt in primary school” is key. It has also particularly resonated with younger audiences, who would have learnt about the Tudors relatively recently (the topic is one of the most extensively covered in primary school, and some secondary school history curricula). From a more practical side as well, Dr Bradley mentioned that SIX is “at one of the extremes in terms of time”, running at 1 hour, with Hamilton firmly at the other, which may help facilitate its enjoyment by younger audiences who are less willing to sit through longer productions. As well as this, the “girl band aspect” is a fun twist, which helps bring in generations of audiences who remember groups such as Girls Aloud, which Bradley stating that the overall concept of SIX is “extremely clever”, which her daughter has seen three times herself.
From my own experience as a theatre fan, reporter and critic, SIX is something completely different to almost anything that is, or has been, offered on stage. The show champions people rather than characters, and is reflected in its performers, as well as its backstage team, made up largely of female-identifying and non-binary people, which is rare among theatrical productions. Its wider messages are also programmed into the show itself, which is always crucial for me. Many productions often have to take sidesteps or great leaps in order to transmit a clear message or thoughtful takeaways into their shows, but simply by listening to the words or singing to ‘the MegaSIX’ on your way out, you’re living the message SIX tries to convey, and in a world where so much unconscious bias affects so many people, maybe a message directly into audience’s subconscious is just what is needed. SIX is widely, and rightly, praised for its accepting, thought-provoking and feminist messages, which according to Dr Bradley, also “connects with socially-just principles of gender…kids are socially conscious partly due to states’ backlash to social justice”, with SIX helping to “contribute to understanding”.
The prevalence of historical musicals and their immense popularity is clear, but does this indicate something larger than a simple enjoyable show? Could we potentially harness this stratospheric rise for the youngest within our society?
“I learned everything, Now all I do is sing”
SIX is already finding its way into schools, acting as a dissenting voice amongst the plethora of sources around the Tudor period of history. As mentioned previously, the musical gives a voice to the sides of history, or indeed the people, who have often been overlooked in exchange for, what is perceived to be, a more historically significant figure. Providing young people with perspectives that go against the mainstream, have been overlooked, are contradictory or different in any regards is crucial for them to develop critical thinking skills, as what they see is assimilated into what has come before.
“When we look at that past, we’re looking at it through today’s lens” says Dr Bradley, “We have shared experiences and individual experiences, with multiple interpretations. The more we learn, the more we challenge”. According to Dr Bradley, it allows us to “teach nuance” in “multidisciplinary ways”. She directed me to a TED Talk given in 2009 by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, where the speaker detailed in depth the “danger of a single story”, in regard to her own perspective of her culture, based on books written about it by non-native writers, which were filled with stereotypes and cultures that were not native to the place they claimed to write about, due to the lack of real experience. The talk highlighted how looking at any issue or concept from a single point of view is reductionist, and risks missing key details, as I daresay has happened a lot throughout history, including in the stories of the women who each spent a portion of their life married to a Tudor monarch.
The perspectives which we choose to learn from change over time, with many discussions around history, its implications and our role in it unimaginable 100 years ago, with the British Empire still reigning over around 20% of the Earth. With this in mind, changing perspectives is not only natural, but crucial, and media such as SIX may be a tremendous ground upon which we can structure our latest looks into our past, starting with the people who will be exploring our history in new ways, even by the time they reach university.
“A guy or three”
Media such as SIX may also be instrumental in increasing the number of young people choosing to pursue degrees or careers in the field of history, as well as its clear effect on the arts. By engaging with history in a way that isn’t simply reading from a textbook or memorising facts and figures, SIX and other musical theatre counterparts may encourage young people to engage in these subjects in ways they never have before. Dr Bradley told me how SIX is key, in that it “brings the history curriculum to life and offers alternatives” to what is explicitly stated in curricula. She even went as far to say that a musical such as SIX could be seen as “critical” to history curriculums in the 21st century.
However, Morgan Robinson was more sceptical. When asked whether the recent success of the historical musical genre, including SIX and Hamilton, evidences a growing interest in the learning about history, he responded “I’m sad to say so, but I’m not sure if it could reliably be said it represents a sea change in the public’s interest in history more generally. Though clearly the powers that be in Broadway and the West End are realising that people are attracted to musicals as a format for consuming historical narratives and interpretations”. He thinks that whilst the incidences of historical musicals are indeed increasing, this is more directly due to an interest in Hamilton as an entity, rather than the history behind it.
“Up for everyone to see”
Finally, SIX serves as a crucial entry for young people into the musical theatre world, whether they have been many times or get their first experience with these queens. As one of the shortest West End shows currently on offer, easy-to-follow storyline and easy distinction between characters, this show is a brilliant way to experiment with live theatre, before committing to longer or more complex productions.
“Theatre is a traditionally difficult to access art form [and there are] still barriers” says Dr Bradley. However, she also said that shows like this, and recently many, have “other ways to access”, in terms of those who are disabled or neurodiverse. Many shows have accessibility performances, whereby the show’s content is altered and arrangements put in place to ensure all audiences can access it comfortably. This leaves the door open for working to include other groups, including specific accommodations for young people to be able to access and learn from musical theatre experiences.
Working to reduce access barriers to theatre for young people is crucial, and schools encouraging the use of SIX in its lessons, could be made to work alongside other campaigns, such as the recently launched #TheatreForEveryChild campaign. Launched in autumn 2023, the campaign asks all political parties to commit to ensuring every child experiences live theatre before they leave school. Aided by the campaign itself, it has proposed plans and costing data to make this happen within the next few years, should central government choose to adopt it. This campaign, alongside the benefits of SIX for history education, could go a long way beyond just taking a few students to a musical. Dr Bradley told me about how her daughter’s history department took several year groups to see the show when it was touring in Bradford. Whilst she made clear that this was a rarity for history departments across the country and from “a particularly brilliant” one, it evidences that the idea of using SIX in the classrooms, and even facilitating it is not only possible, but beneficial.
As a history tutor, I asked Morgan Robinson what he would need to see from a musical, such as SIX to warrant its use in the curriculum, to which he responded “Practically speaking it’s becoming hugely expensive…you would need to justify that a significant amount of curricular time and departmental budget be spent on what would be seen as a luxury that either the school or the students might not be able to afford. But if the expense was not an issue…I see no reason why you couldn’t make that argument. Part of that argument would also be – it’s useful in a history specific context, but it’s also engaging, inspiring, culturally enriching”. It is well-known that school departmental budgets are being stretched, with school trips being an easy element to forego, but with SIX’s influence growing ever more apparent, its cultural significance, and the emergence of #TheatreForEveryChild, maybe a future of theatre viewers may be on the horizon.
“You wanna replace me”
Whilst SIX presents a range of opportunities for our young people, it also presents a risk that they may start to view history incorrectly if productions like SIX or Hamilton are too heavily relied on, with misconceptions that the Founding Fathers were partial to rap music, or that the SIX queens were not only all together at one time, but all got along with one another. Could we risk cementing incorrect ideas in young people from an overuse of these methods?
Neither Dr Bradley or Morgan Robinson thought so. Robinson pointed out that “The biggest potential danger is that these interpretations are seen as gospel. This precludes understanding of history as a discipline of provisional truth-seeking and reinforces the common misconception students have that there is one authoritative narrative of events – the past ‘as it happened’ – simply waiting to be rediscovered. Hamilton for example isn’t dangerous in that regard because the medium of speech is rap – but it is dangerous for the reasons above, for example it’s glorification of Washington disregards his own involvement in the trade in enslaved people. This isn’t just an omission but an intentional choice to interpret Washington in a particular way. The same could be said of Hamilton directly given his (at least indirect) involvement in trade in enslaved people…students need to retain the ability to recognise that one of the driving purposes of productions like this are storytelling no less than (and sometimes far ahead of) historical accuracy or any genuine attempt to convey a truthful historical interpretation”. Dr Bradley also believes that it’s important to “give young people credit for critical thinking…and understanding artistic license”, with many able to challenge beliefs they already hold with the ones they’re presented.
“For five, four, three, two, one more minute”
Ultimately, SIX has experienced a truly unprecedented journey from Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, to being used in some history departments to educate our young people. With its popularity growing by the day, only time will tell whether the queens will be used to help educate students and contribute to the revitalisation of our theatre industries. But given its sheer popularity with young people and the effects it has already had, I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more people hear the true stories of Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard and Parr within their own classrooms.
