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‘Son of a whore and a Scotsman’ … Jamael Westman as Alexander Hamilton with the West End cast in Hamilton.
‘Son of a whore and a Scotsman’ … Jamael Westman as Alexander Hamilton with the West End cast of Hamilton. Photograph: Matthew Murphy
‘Son of a whore and a Scotsman’ … Jamael Westman as Alexander Hamilton with the West End cast of Hamilton. Photograph: Matthew Murphy

Hamilton review – revolutionary musical a thrilling salute to America's immigrants

This article is more than 6 years old

Victoria Palace, London
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rollercoaster of a show boasts outstanding performances and charts the life of the US founding father with political passion and nimble wit

A Hollywood mogul, offered a musical about America’s founding fathers, once said: “People don’t want a show with wigs.” One of the many joys of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s much-heralded musical is that it offers us history de-wigged: it’s a rollercoaster of a show in which a bare-headed, largely non-white cast capture the fervour and excitement of revolution while reminding us how much America’s identity was shaped by a buccaneering immigrant, Alexander Hamilton.

What is astonishing is how well the form fits the subject: Miranda’s use of rap, hip-hop and R&B becomes the ideal vehicle for exploring the birth of a nation.

Hamilton, as we’re told from the outset, is “a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman” who leaves the Caribbean to become George Washington’s right-hand man, a key interpreter of the constitution and secretary of the treasury. He marries well, overcomes a sex scandal and dies in a duel with his rival Aaron Burr who is his nemesis and the show’s narrator. But, while Hamilton is the story’s pivot, he is also part of a musical that, like the nation itself, seems in perpetual motion.

Miranda’s music and lyrics combine two things that rarely go together: political passion and nimble wit. Hamilton early on tells us: “I’m just like my country. I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.” These lines are echoed by the whole ensemble in a terrific revolutionary anthem, Yorktown, in which the victorious American troops appropriate a traditional British ballad, The World Turned Upside Down.

Miranda’s lyrics, which include references to Shakespeare and WS Gilbert, are full of verbal dexterity. Burr, surveying the nostalgie de la boue of the Schuyler sisters, tells us: “There’s nothing rich folks love more than goin’ downtown and slummin’ it with the poor.” In a show that glories in language, “Boston” is rhymed with “cost n’” and “lost n’”. Two numbers, particularly, symbolise Miranda’s superb mental agility. George III – played by Michael Jibson as a figure of ineffable absurdity – surveys the political infighting after Washington’s resignation with unholy relish. Crying: “Jesus Christ, this will be fun,” he jigs as if, under all the royal regalia, he were a closeted rocker.

The Schuyler sisters … Rachelle Ann Go (Eliza), Rachel John (Angelica) and Christine Allado (Peggy). Photograph: Matthew Murphy

The outstanding number, however, is Burr’s The Room Where It Happens. This takes a politically complex subject: the secret deal in which Hamilton accepted the idea of Washington DC as the nation’s capital in exchange for federal control over the debts accrued by the separate states. Miranda turns it into a number of rapidly accelerating momentum about Burr’s desire to be in the room at the time of the deal – and about the mystery of history. The song, referencing Someone in a Tree from Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, shows Miranda’s deep roots in America’s musical past.

There are times in the second half when the show’s virtuosity becomes a little taxing. I’m also not sure that Miranda, who acknowledges the influence of Ron Chernow’s biography, ever fully establishes the difference between Jefferson’s vision of America as an agrarian paradise and Hamilton’s as one of urban entrepreneurship. But this is a show that, in Thomas Kail’s production and in Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography, moves with intoxicating speed and combines historical sweep with attention to detail: one tiny example is the way the coveted letter that gives Hamilton command of a battalion in the fight with the Brits passes from hand to hand like an electrified baton.

Salieri to Hamilton’s Mozart … Giles Terera (Aaron Burr) with the West End cast of Hamilton. Photograph: Matthew Murphy

The performances also match the variety and energy of the music. Jamael Westman, not long out of drama school, invests Hamilton with immense authority, reminding us that words were always his most effective weapon and suggests a mixture of opportunist and visionary.

Giles Terera plays Burr with an envious gleam as if he were Salieri to Hamilton’s Mozart and always slightly in awe of his rival’s whirlwind success. Obioma Ugoala’s Washington, Hamilton’s surrogate father, has great gravitas, Rachelle Ann Go lends Hamilton’s wife the poignancy of the neglected and Rachel John is impressive as his adoring sister-in-law. But the funniest performances, aside from Jibson’s English king, come from Jason Pennycooke who doubles as a patriotic Lafayette and a spring-heeled Jefferson in a maroon maxi who jives and jumps with glee as Hamilton’s fortunes fade.

Timeline

How Hamilton the Musical became a smash hit

Show

January 2015

Hamilton, a new musical written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, has its first performances off-Broadway at the Public theater in New York. Its subject is the US founding father who was the first secretary of the Treasury. 

February 2015

As the show opens officially, it wins praise from critics, particularly for its innovative blend of musical styles, from rap to operetta. In her four-star review, the Guardian’s Alexis Soloski calls the show "brash, nimble, historically engaged and startlingly contemporary".

August 2015

After selling out its run at the Public, the show opens on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers theatre and there is huge demand for tickets.

February 2016

The original Broadway cast recording wins a Grammy award for best musical theatre album.

March 2016

Miranda visits the White House to perform songs from the musical and a video of him freestyling in the Rose Garden with President Barack Obama goes viral. First lady Michelle Obama calls the show “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life”.

April 2016

Hamilton wins the Pulitzer prize for drama.

June 2016 

The musical breaks records, winning 11 Tony awards – at a ceremony that takes place after news breaks of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. Miranda performs a sonnet in praise of his wife and son, ending with the words: “Now fill the world with music, love and pride.”

July 2016

Miranda stops performing in the show to pursue other opportunities, including starring in a sequel to Mary Poppins. A spoof version of the musical, Spamilton, opens in New York.

 October 2016

A production of Hamilton opens in Chicago and runs concurrently with the Broadway version.

November 2016

Vice-president-elect Mike Pence sees the show in New York. From the stage, actor Brandon Victor Dixon addresses him directly, saying: “We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us.” On Twitter, Donald Trump condemns their “terrible behaviour” and says he hears the show is “highly overrated”.

January 2017

The first cast members are revealed for a West End production of Hamilton. 

December 2017

The show opens to five-star reviews at the newly renovated Victoria Palace theatre in London.

March 2018

The London production of Hamilton gets 13 Olivier nominations, making it the most nominated show in the history of the awards.

July 2020

A filmed version of the Broadway production debuts on the Disney+ streaming service, warmly welcomed while the world is still in lockdown over the coronavirus crisis. 

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In the end, however, the power of Hamilton lies in its ability to make the past seem vividly present. It suggests its subject was an Icarus who flew too close to the sun.

But it also shows that he was an outsider who believed in strong central government and an enlightened capitalism. Above all, Miranda has created an invigorating and original musical that, at a time of national crisis, celebrates America’s overwhelming debt to the immigrant.

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