Thirty six years late, Rick Wakeman arrived in triumph to perform his historical opus, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, at the King’s old palace. In 1973 the former titan of prog rock’s request to play there was rebuffed. Now here he was on a vast outdoor stage, at the invitation of palace authorities, to help to mark the 500th anniversary of the King’s coronation. Clad in a a blood-red gown that was part Tudor baron, part Father Christmas, he stood surrounded by six damsels dressed as the unfortunate wives.

As the strings of the Orchestra Europa sawed away, the English Chamber Choir raised their voices and Wakeman fired up his Moogs over the four-square thump of the English Rock Ensemble, we were transported back in time — if not to 1509, at least to the early 1970s, when fiddlesome prog rock and bleepy synthesizers were thought to be the very future of music.

Behind the stage, the west front of ancient Hampton Court glowed in a succession of mauves, greens and psychedelic patterns. Brian Blessed walked out as MC fruitily to declaim some Wikipedia facts about each wife. Sadly, he was in civvies, where a doublet, if not hose, would surely have added to the jollity. Wakeman’s musical portraits veered from honky-tonk to switched-on Bach, but all the ladies seemed to share a fondness for pomp rock. For Jane Seymour a vast cathedral organ was unveiled; Wakeman swapped into a gold cape and, to a roar of approval, assaulted the keys.

As spectacle the evening was a gaudy triumph, musically less so. With such vast forces the sound was muddy, woodwind and brass had a thin time of it and the harpist might as well have stayed in the bar. Wakeman’s symphonic rock — an unlikely collision of Chopin and Black Sabbath (with a hint of Liberace) — seemed anchored in its era. Still, the old showman was having a fine time. He and his son Adam ended by strapping on portable synths, rocking out and winning a standing ovation.

Hampton Court’s reputation as a pleasure palace for gents of a certain age was proudly upheld.

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