Revolution

It was the toast of Broadway, with tickets changing hands for thousands — now Hamilton is set to captivate London. on the making of a masterpiece

Puerto Rico as a student. A precociously talented lyricist and song-writer, he was inspired by seeing what he called the “holy Trinity” as a child: Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and Cats. He wrote his first musical, In the Heights, about the community where he grew up. He won a Tony and a Grammy for it in 2008. He was 28.

The idea for Hamilton came to him on holiday in Mexico. Waiting for his flight, he bought Ron Chernow’s 800-page biography of Hamilton.

For Miranda, as for most Americans, Hamilton was just the austere -looking man on the $10 note. He lurked in the shadows of America’s early years, a figure half-hidden by better-known men such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As he lounged around learning about Hamilton — his birth out of wedlock in St Croix in the Virgin Islands, his arrival in New York, his work as Washington’s secretary and adviser during America’s war for independence, his extra-marital affairs and his death in a duel with Vice President Burr — lyrics kept coming.

The cold figure on the $10 bill was anything but bloodless. Miranda saw in Hamilton the equal of all the talented, sharp-elbowed hustlers celebrated through American history and culture, right up to the present. ‘‘The idea of hip-hop being the music of the Revolution appealed to me immensely,” he said. “It felt right.”

MIRANDA received early and prominent support for his hunch. In 2009 he was invited by the Obamas, a few months after they arrived at the White House, to perform in an evening celebrating “the American experience”. The White House expected him to do a number from In the Heights. Instead he offered a new song he had written, that would turn out to be the opening song of Hamilton. The audience laughed when he told them that in his opinion, Ham- ilton “embodies hip-hop.” But by the end they were sold.

Not many Broadway composers could claim to have been inspired in equal measure by Shakespeare, the Bible and rappers Big Pun and Biggie Smalls.

When the musical opened in 2015, the Obamas became its biggest champions. Michelle Obama invited the cast to the White House and called Hamilton “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life”. Her husband said it had taught him that “rap is the language of revolution and hip-hop is the backbeat”. He recorded a video in the Rose Garden where he held up words such as “constitution” as Miranda rapped along.

Chernow said, “From the beginning I’ve really felt like this show has had ‘Obama’s America’ written all over it.” The cast is mostly black and Latino, even those playing white characters. George Washington in the original production was black and Thomas Jefferson has an evil Southern drawl.

Critics compared Hamilton with Shakespeare’s historical plays, saying Miranda had found a new way to tell America its own story. Politicians from left and right came to New York to see the show, loving how Miranda had