Spamilton: An American Parody
Written and directed by: Gerard Alessandrini Menier Chocolate Factory, Southwark Street, London SE1 (020-7378 1713). Until 8 September Running time: 1hr 25mins
Gerard Alessandrini is the serial spoofer who has been sending up big musicals “something rotten” since the brilliant longrunner Forbidden Broadway first appeared in 1982, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Spamilton represents the “apotheosis” of his singular craft – a take-down of Lin-manuel Miranda’s boxoffice phenomenon Hamilton so accomplished and hilarious that it ended up transferring to a Broadway venue “within spitting distance of the real Mccoy”. Spamilton both celebrates and mocks Miranda’s Tony-laden rap-driven smash – from its wellnigh-incomprehensible lyrics down to its breeches, riding boots and extravagantly energetic choreography. Yet you don’t need to have seen Hamilton to enjoy it: I took along a “Hamilton ignoramus” and he laughed as much as I did.
Even those unfamiliar with the original will enjoy this “fearless” and splendidly “silly” show, agreed Ann Treneman in The Times. It contains numerous brilliant pastiches of such musical theatre stalwarts as Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli; and it draws on a whole range of familiar shows including Les Mis, Cats, Mamma Mia!, The King and I, Guys and Dolls and Sweeney Todd. The bit sending up The Book of Mormon (“last year’s hit”) is “particularly funny”. Yes, it’s all a bit rough and ready, but that adds to the laughter. “My entire row was rocking with giggles for much of the night.” My only quibble, said Fiona Mountford in the London Evening Standard, is that it all becomes a little too unrelenting and frantic. “Far greater differentiation in the pacing would help.”
The trouble with the show for me was that it’s too “precariously poised between sceptical send-up and incestuous celebration”, said Paul Taylor in The Independent, It’s as if Alessandrini is hedging his bets over “how affectionate a fang to dig into the hand that feeds him”. And there is such “a suffocation” of relentlessly in-jokey references that it all becomes claustrophobic. “I enjoyed a lot of the show, but it left me gasping for air.”