Alexander Hamilton is one of the United States of America's Founding Fathers who oversaw the War of Independence and drafted the constitution for the brand new nation, but not one that most people had heard of until Lin-Manuel Miranda put him at the centre of the hottest ticket—and the show to be seen at—on Broadway and the West End. It is now in Manchester for three months before a regional tour.
In Miranda's musical, Hamilton—Shaq Taylor, who comes on like someone who could easily merge into a crowd but quickly demonstrates the charisma to stand out in one—begins as a young, ambitious student, an orphan of British and French Huguenot descent born in the West Indies, arriving in New York in 1776 where he meets the lawyer Aaron Burr (Sam Oladeinde). Burr becomes the Salieri to Hamilton's Mozart, both mentor and rival, narrating his story for our benefit and telling us right at the start that he is responsible for his death.
Hamilton impresses Burr—together with fellow revolutionaries John Laurens (DeAngelo Jones), the Marquis de Lafayette (Billy Nevers) and Hercules Mulligan (K M Drew Boateng)—with his oratory and passion, and soon ends up as George Washington's (Charles Simmons) right-hand man. Hamilton marries Eliza (Maya Britto), from a wealthy family, but her sister Angelica (Aisha Jawando) also has feelings for the young man.
King George—played as a comic villain by Daniel Boys, somewhere between Rik Mayall and Harry Enfield—addresses the audience directly to predict "You'll Be Back" in a very '60s English style of pop song, perhaps reminiscent of The Kinks, after the Treaty of Paris severs his power over 'the Colonies'. But Hamilton, a prolific writer and self-promoter, continues to work with Washington on the new constitution, and is quite happy to make enemies in doing so, including future presidents James Madison (Boateng) and Thomas Jefferson (Nevers).
Miranda's score is heavily influenced, but certainly not restricted, by hip-hop and is through-sung (through-rapped?), but most of its songs are given distinct endings with a pause for applause, more like an old-fashioned 'book' musical. Some songs are, in style, more like modern musical theatre songs, but there are influences also from soul and jazz / blues as well—when Burr sings that he wants to be in "The Room where it Happens", he almost turns into Cab Calloway.
Miranda has taken the wordplay and storytelling from rap music but with much stricter attention to rhyming than is traditional in hip-hop in his very well-crafted lyrics; even the recitative sections have perfect rhymes that rarely sound obvious or clichéd. His music, particularly in the rapped numbers, will often slowly infiltrate you before suddenly upping the power and taking you with them, which can be genuinely exciting—he does the same in In the Heights. This is not backed with samples and synths but with a ten-piece pit band—musical director Zach Flis—which, apart from keys and percussion, is all strings.
I did struggle a bit to follow the story at times, particularly in the opening, when there is a lot of story to cover and a lot of words coming at you rapidly (some in a French accent) that you have to really concentrate on to catch if you are not already familiar with the score (Les Misérables had a similar problem). This was perhaps not helped by those in the press night audience who clearly knew the show well and whooped over the beginnings of their favourite numbers like a Saturday night TV audience.
But overall, this is a very slick, impressive show from director Thomas Kail (UK associate director Stephen Whitson) with imaginative choreography from Andy Blankenbuehler (UK associate choreographer Carrie-Anne Ingrouille) that finds a well-suited style of its own. There are some great touches to a complex lighting design from the late Howell Binkley, and the sound is crystal clear, not often the case at the Palace, for which head of production sound for the tour Josh Richardson probably deserves at least as much credit as original sound designer Nevin Steinberg.
This show arrives in Manchester accompanied by a lot of hype, but in this case it is justified for a production that still feels like a big West End show with a number one cast, not a version cut down for touring. Be in the room where it happens before it moves on.