Love Me, Love Me - An Overly Obsessive Analysis of All You Wanna Do
   Here it is. Iâm finally writing a far too long and overly analytic essay that no body asked for (well one person did) about All You Wanna Do from Six the Musical. More realistically, Iâm going to discussing Katherine Howard throughout the musical and specifically how she manipulates the audience throughout the show to make All You Wanna Do all the more effective. I use the word manipulate and will probably do so again, which has a negative connotation, but I donât mean it in a negative way. Itâs just the most effective word to use. I should also note that Iâve never seen SixâŠlive. I may have happened upon some less than legal video, and all of the knowledge Iâll be pulling from beyond the cast recording and some audios will be from that. I know it was an earlier show and that there have been some changes since then, and I donât have any way of knowing what those changes are so please bear with me if some details arenât completely correct or still accurate. I do have every intention to see a production of Six eventually, but I live in the very, very Deep American South, so getting to a city where its playing is gonna take some time. Also, due to the nature of this song, Iâm putting a heavy content warning for sexual assault, child grooming, pedophilia, etc. If youâve listened to the song, you know what its about, so you know Iâm going to be discussing all that.
   Now that the preliminary disclaimers are out of the way, letâs begin.
   From the beginning of the show, Katherine Howard is trying to win the audience over more than any other Queen. Theyâre trying in various ways, yes, but Howard is the one putting the most work in beyond just trying to make herself look better or justify herself to them. From her introduction in Ex-Wives sheâs doing this. She interrupts Clevesâs dick joke with âPrick up your ears,â turning Clevesâs joke that probably would have landed somewhat, and making it her joke that definitely lands with the audience. After Ex-Wives, she looks directly at the audience when she delivers the line âThe Thomas Cromwell Amongst the Royal Ministers, between 1532 and 1540â which is a line that only works because it goes on too long and is weirdly detailed and specific enough to be funny. She looks and points at people in the front row when she says âbetween 1532 and 1540â as an acknowledgement that sheâs breaking from her stage persona for a moment to give them this line, and that sells it to the crowd. They know that sheâs purposely being overly detailed and theyâre with her. Itâs not expected, especially not from her, and so its funny. The entire goal of K Howard throughout this show is the make sure that the audience stays with her and to use what people expect from her to her own advantage and, at some points, against them.
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