Jackman just might be the greatest showman
Hugh Jackman Hydro, Glasgow
★★★★★
‘Congratulations, you’ve all passed Musical Theatre 101,” purred Hugh Jackman, after an affecting rendition of My Boy Bill from
Carousel. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical is hardly esoteric, but it was about as niche as the set list got at this first night of Jackman’s debut
European musical tour. Subtitled “The Man. The Music. The Show”, Jackman’s new live set with orchestra and a troupe of dancers is a version of previous one-man shows that had brief runs on Broadway and in his native Australia.
While there’s no doubt his global fame following 2017’s The Greatest Showman has provided impetus for nearly 100 of these arena dates across the world, it is the generous glimpses of Jackman’s interior life that make this show special. He prefaced a version of You Will Be Found from the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen with a tale of feeling abandoned by friends before his first-ever cricket match at
the age of eight, before the massed ranks of Glasgow’s Soundsational Community Choir generated a vivid sense of togetherness. When he was nine, Jackman recalled, a teacher recommended he take dance lessons, but his interest was blunted when one of his older brothers called him a “sissy”.
Nine years later, their father took the pair to 42nd Street, the brother apologised at last, and Jackman booked his first dance lesson. Here, the story prefaced a bravura tap-and drumming medley to hits from the past such as Van Halen’s Jump, with the snarling and still-lithe 50-year-old brandishing his drumsticks as though they were the claws of his previously defining screen character, Wolverine from the X-men films.
There was plenty of personal nostalgia in a medley of songs by the late Australian composer Peter Allen from The Boy from Oz, the show which won Jackman his first Tony Award, while the flash and sparkle of Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can
Do) and I Go to Rio was balanced by the comic moment when a female admirer in the front row eagerly laid her hands on the singer. In
Tenterfield Saddler, Allen’s tale of his bush upbringing, Jackman made spiritual contact with a kindred Aussie boy done good on the biggest stage.
The crowd-pleasing moments were plenty, among them a frenetic medley from classic movie musicals including songs such as Luck Be
a Lady and Singing in the Rain; a redemptive, lip-quivering storm through Valjean’s Soliloquy from
Les Misérables, segueing into Glaswegian singer Jenna Lee-james’s rendition of I Dreamed a Dream; and – most surprising of all – the shocked ovation when US singer Keala Settle appeared to sing This Is Me from The Greatest Showman.
None of these, however, would have achieved such impact without Jackman’s emotional commitment, as though he was leaving a little of himself behind on stage with each song. The sense of natural showmanship that made him perfect for the role of PT Barnum was tangible, and – along with his raw baritone – it carried the evening.