Nothing less than a masterpiece.
📍 Victoria Palace Theatre, London
📅 SAT 30 NOV TO SUN 16 JAN 2022
🕖 Tuesday – Saturday: 7.30pm; Saturday & Sunday: 2.30pm
🕖 Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes (includes a 15 min. interval)
👥 Director: Thomas Kail
👥 Orchestrations / Co-Arranger: Alex Lacamoire
👥 Choreographer: Andy Blackenbuehler
💰 From £20.
🎭 Headset for those with hearing difficulties available from the Cloakroom in the Foyer.
🎭 Wheelchair access available, both to building, and to step-free stall boxes
Hamilton, beloved child of Lin Manuel Miranda’s imagination, premiered Off-Broadway back in 2015. It swiftly transferred to the Richard Rogers Theatre, where it has persistently sold-out ever since. In 2017, the show opened in the West End, at The Victoria Palace, where similarly enduring popularity stands testament to the show’s transatlantic appeal.
Though Hamilton does continually tour the U.S.A, here in Blighty it’s the West End, or nothing, at least for now.
So, the question for the common or garden Edinburgh culture vulture is: is the show worth the price of the ticket, the train, and a hotel room combined?
The answer is an unqualified YES.
From the before the opening number (Thanks King George III, indeed it is your show), through the final touching moments, Hamilton is a tour de force of storytelling, musical fusion, and pulsating style.
Alexander Hamilton
The typical child of the U.K. Educational system is unlikely to familiar with the life of Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, possible abolitionist, and to date the youngest member of any presidential cabinet.
As the first Secretary of the Treasury, under George Washington, Hamilton laid the basis for the modern American economy (no one’s perfect); before he’d already distinguished himself as a brilliant solider, first as Aide to Washington, and then Major General.
Hamilton was also an immigrant, born out of wedlock on the Island of Nevis, and orphaned by the age of 12. His rise to fame and power was meteoric even by modern standards, and his achievements all the more remarkable for the abrupt cessation of his life due to a very stupid duel with former friend, turned political enemy, Aaron Burr.
Not just any musical
In an age when no story is safe from musical transfiguration, it’s no longer surprising that Miranda might take such a subject for the big stage treatment, nor that he would place modern parlance in ancestral mouths.
What sets Hamilton apart from its competitors is the soundtrack. Heavy with Hip-hop and musical rap, Miranda’s score achieves magical fusion with any genre it touches. The result is unmistakably musical theatre, just not as you’ve known it. There’s many a show that would sell its proverbial granny to achieve just one of Hamilton’s rousing themes, or touching harmonies.
If you think “hip-hop, that’s not for me,” please ignore yourself and just go. Miranda effortlessly references everything from Gilbert & Sullivan, Wagner, to Beyoncé, such is the quality of his work. There’s no gimmick here, just the application of modern musical ideas to tell an old story in a new, and refreshing way.
Ideas galore
The ideas, and messages, Lin Manuel has pulled from the life of this somewhat obscured historical figure are both timeless and timely.
Does power always corrupt?
Are principles, however noble, always worth the price they exact?
Is living everyday as if it’s your last a path to glory, or a forfeiture of one’s present?
Would George III have been better liked if he published charming pop songs reassuring the new world of his enduring, and rather homicidal love?
By placing modern agents in the skin of historical figures from Washington to Jefferson, this show finds new life in stolid myth. When Jefferson (Waylon Jacobs) and Hamilton (Jay Perry) rap-battle over legislature, the subject matter is becomes current, vital, and not in the least trivialised. When duels are translated into show-stopping choreography, we feel those fatal ten steps pulse in our blood. Love proclaimed through pop and R&B is instinctively understood as the same love circulating in modern hearts.
The result is stirring, fascinating, and tragic. It takes skill to make an audience care for a flawed hero, and even more to summon empathy for the story’s villains. All told, the birth of the American nation has never been told with such style or urgency.
Hamilton knows no hero is born without clay feet, and that no legend is captured in one telling. Ultimately a tale of hope, Miranda dares to suggest that the “good” people do can live after them.
If Lin Manuel Miranda’s book, score, and lyrics are a singular achievement, then the current West End cast are entirely equal to its delivery. Particular praise is warranted for Sharon Rose (Alexander’s wife, Eliza Hamilton). Her electrifying vocals, and nuanced emotional performance both demand and reward the audience’s rapt attention. When her heart breaks over her Icarus-like spouse, so too does the audience’s.
Let’s hear it for the boys
I now digress to heap praise on the understudy/swings, who stepped into the breach on the night of the 7th December, when I attended. Of the regular cast, not only was Karl Queensborough out of action, but also Trevor Dion Nicholas, and Simon-Anthony Rhoden. That’s Hamilton, his arch rival Burr, and George Washington, i.e. the three central male roles, all placed into reservist hands.
Dear Reader, let me be clear, I had no idea I wasn’t witnessing the principal cast in action until I started my researches for the review which you are now reading.
Why?
Very simply, their replacements were just that darn good. Jay Perry in particular, gave a vocal performance I consider as good, if not better than Lin Manuel Miranda’s original. His Hamilton is a driven, imperfect man, a hero to root for, pity, and sometimes revile. Other replacements were required elsewhere in the cast, and again, such is the depth of talent in the Hamilton bull-pen, that the show more than went on.
Bravo people, bravo! You most certainly did not ‘throw away your shot.’
Simple and deadly effective
Director Thomas Kail, and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, have created a show full of pace, yet never remotely rushed. If this isn’t the first show to use a revolving stage, the use of this old device is nothing less than masterful. The well-rehearsed ensemble seem to swim about the main cast, allowing scenes to emerge and dissolve with an organic grace. The set is admirably simple, its base configuration a timber-built tavern that wouldn’t look out of place in Les Mis. With but a few simple props, plus Howell Binkley and Warren Letton’s clever lighting design, the audience is still effectively transported elsewhere, from muddy battlefield, to New York sidewalk. Paul Tazewell’s costuming is entirely adequate both to the period and demands of the performance.
Hamilton isn’t out to impress you with bells and whistles staging, it doesn’t need to: the base product is just so very, very good.
The unseen heroes of Hamilton are the orchestra, hidden beneath the stage in the pit, but producing a tremendously vivacious, rich soundscape. Bravo my unseen artisans, bravo.
Everything about this show is crafted with meticulous care, and abundant love. You should see this show, and if that means jumping on a train, then so be it. Trust me when I say no recording will ever capture the thrill of this show experienced in person.
Who knows, you might even be lucky enough to see some amazing understudies in action.
For tickets, and more information on this production, please click here.
Some photography taken from official ©Hamilton website e.g. headshots. Please get in touch if you would rather these were removed/replaced.
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