Look out! The Yankee rebels are coming...
The revolutionary musical hamilton, about the rebels who founded America and repelled George III, will open a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace. But the show comes in peace! And only blanks will be fired on the stage of the Victoria Palace from October 2017.
hamilton, nominated in 16 categories in Sunday’s Tony Awards, is about Alexander hamilton: a war hero who established the architecture that built the U.S. government in the 18th century — and the face of the $10 bill.
he was known as a terrible windbag and as a master of bureaucracy. Not exactly the stuff of a great night out at the theatre, right?
Wrong! The reason why womanising hamilton — created by LinManuel Miranda, who adapted Ron Chernow’s biography of hamilton and wrote the music and lyrics — has become a cultural and hugely popular phenomenon in the States (President Obama is a fan) is because of the inspired way Miranda chose to tell the tale. The beginning of the opening song, Alexander hamilton, goes as follows: ‘How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a, Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a, Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, Impoverished, in squalor, Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
It’s a rap. Miranda’s superb lyrics about the ‘ten dollar father without a father’ have you bobbing in your seat in time to the music, which has been influenced by an eclectic crew including Jay Z, DMC, Rodgers and hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Gilbert and Sullivan — and The Beatles.
BUT the coup de theatre is the casting. The white men who founded the U.S. — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr — are played by actors who represent what America looks like now. Miranda took the title role himself, and almost every other key part is played by nonCaucasian actors.
Cameron Mackintosh, who owns the Victoria Palace, is working with hamilton’s lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, to cast British black, Asian and Middle eastern actors for the West end company.
Miranda is discussing when he’ll be able to join the London cast. he leaves the Broadway show on July 9 and will star with emily Blunt in the new Mary Poppins film for Disney.
hamilton was developed at New York’s Public Theater in January of last year, where I saw it during previews and again after it officially opened, with the original company et al that included Miranda. I caught it for a third time when it transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre (I was lucky enough to buy a restricted view seat which was perfectly fine).
Mackintosh has started a £30millionplus refurbishment of the Victoria Palace that includes enlargement of the stage and construction of a fly tower. ‘We’ll have new seating, and I’m putting in boxes,’ Mackintosh told me.
The front of house will also be extended. everything will be completed well before previews begin in October, 2017.
Mackintosh, who loves architecture nearly as much as he does theatre, said the Frank Matchamdesigned house will be painstakingly restored. ‘I love bringing back theatres in a contemporary way,’ he said. Tickets won’t go on sale until the autumn. however, on Monday at noon, a website — hamiltonthemusical.co.uk — will go live and people can register for priority booking.
There will be a wide range of prices. I understand the basic top ticket will be £85, though premium seats could go for between £150£200. There will, however, also be lowprice allocations for students (methods to ensure that such tickets actually go to them, and not greedy middle and upperclass folk and touts, are being tested).
Premium tickets for hamilton in NY just increased to $849 (£586), though there’s also a daily lottery of $10 (£7) seats — something Seller and Mackintosh want to replicate at the VP.