A deliriously silly Hamilton parody
Spamilton Menier Chocolate Factory
G erard Alessandrini has been sending up big Broadway shows something rotten since 1982, when the first “edition” of his revue
Forbidden Broadway materialised at an Upper West Side cabaret club. Now his noted flair for biting the theatrical hand that feeds him has reached its apotheosis in Spamilton: Lin-manuel Miranda’s musical phenomenon gets a highly accomplished takedown in a show that did such a roaring trade in New York it transferred to a venue within spitting distance of the real Mccoy.
Only for seven months, mind – which suggests that the appeal of
Spamilton: An American Parody isn’t as inexhaustible as it apparently is Stateside for Hamilton itself. It will be interesting to see how this spoof fares in London, where the same levels of Hamilmania don’t apply, even though it’s much in demand. Yet the show’s impolite reminder that everything has a sell-by date is what furnishes the brief, delectable evening with titbits for thought as well as matter for mirth.
Alessandrini and co celebrate what it is that makes Miranda’s Tony-laden, rap-driven behemoth distinctive – from the tongue-twisting lyrics down to the breeches that are teasingly replicated here. Yet it relentlessly guys the idea that the show stands a revolutionary world apart from the rivals it has come to dethrone. Among numerous pastiches, The Book of Mormon – usurped as the century’s must-see event – gets the last laugh here in a cautionary song about believing your hype. Miranda saw Spamilton, survived its mocking character-assassination and said: “I laughed my brains out.”
Is it necessary to come to this show with a clear idea, however derived, of the butt of the satirical joke? Not a jot – I took a total Hamilton ignoramus along, and the hilarity was almost identical. The achievement of the piece – directed by Alessandrini himself – is that it acts as a primer to the original’s hectic story, its key numbers too, while providing a matchingly breathless deconstruction of its making.
Miranda (Liam Tamne) “plays” and effectively supplants his Founding Father hero, dreaming the dream, scribbling away furiously to turn the American musical upside down. He’s inspired by precedent (Stephen Sondheim features a lot) and warring with Disneyfication (well, up to a Mary Poppinsy point). In short, it’s a sustained theatrical in-joke that’s appreciable by outsiders. Hanging on to Hamilton’s coat-tails, it sweeps you along in its deliriously silly wake. The tireless nine-strong cast, superb of voice (accompanied by Simon Beck, terrific, at a Steinway) never let slip a chance to ham (or spam?) it up. I loved the running gag involving the beggarwoman, revealed to be a show-stealing celebrity (step forth Elaine Paige and Liza Minnelli, entailing lethal mimicry from Sophie-louise Dann).
Perhaps the crowning glory of the night is the reworking of the George III show-stopper, which somehow matches the bravura of the original while identifying the way Hamilton represents a pushback against musical “camp”: “Now history is the subject/ The rigid, frigid subject/ The metro, het’ro subject”. A stinging criticism there? Yes, and the piece is unafraid to jibe at the way that this fawned-over masterpiece can be complex to the point of incomprehensibility, pushes sentimental buttons when it needs to.
The best parody hugs its target close, the better to stick in the skewer. Here that skewer goes in with a very satisfying squelch.