Hamilton ‘officially’ opened in the West End last night, and with it come the first reviews from London’s theatre critics.
As you might have guessed from the hysterically happy tweets from Hamilton’s first preview, the cast of the show’s London transfer have pretty much smashed it. Aside from the already legendary musical numbers, reviewers heaped particular praise on straight-outta-RADA newcomer Jamael Westman in the role of Alexander Hamilton, Giles Terera as Aaron Burr and Michael Jibson as a hilarious George III. Read on for more…
Adam Bloodworth for Metro:
Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda astonishingly modernises the story of the immigrant Hamilton, a bastard by birth who revolutionised the US constitution, and created the country’s first banking system. Hamilton’s life is told almost exclusively in rap (it seems bonkers, right?), but it creates a fury of energy on stage – fuelled by the bopping heads in the audience, like we’re at an Eminem gig – like no show has before. ★★★★☆
Michael Billington for The Guardian:
One of the many joys of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s much-heralded musical is that it offers us history de-wigged: it’s a rollercoaster of a show in which a bare-headed, largely non-white cast capture the fervour and excitement of revolution while reminding us how much America’s identity was shaped by a buccaneering immigrant, Alexander Hamilton. What is astonishing is how well the form fits the subject: Miranda’s use of rap, hip-hop and R&B becomes the ideal vehicle for exploring the birth of a nation. ★★★★★
Dominic Cavendish for The Telegraph:
Believe every single word of the hype. The cheer that goes up in the gloriously renovated Victoria Palace theatre when Jamael Westman steps forward, solemn, serene and self-possessed, introducing us to the hero of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical phenomenon…. is like the rapture of a crowd of believers meeting their awaited saviour. The fervour that attends this show is off the scale. ★★★★★
Tim Bano for The Stage:
This show doesn’t feel like the young, scrappy and hungry product that it must have seemed when it hit Broadway. Commercial polish shines, just a little, on its surface. It’s less of a revelation. The payoff, however, is a sense of utter completeness. Hamilton is a touchstone. It’s zeitgeist, youthquake, Momentum, it’s woke, it’s post-musical. From masculinity, power struggles and the small things on earth, it metastasises into a crying epic about legacy, principle, nations, all the incredible mongrel people within those nations, and how all those people – every single one – can change the world. ★★★★★
Paul Taylor for The Independent:
I’m delighted to report that, for the most part, Hamilton manages to live up to this degree of hype – quite exhilaratingly – and will disarm folk who think that a hip-hop musical about the Founding Fathers isn’t ideally placed to be a mega-hit on this side of the pond. ★★★★★
Andrzej Lukowski for Time Out:
‘Hamilton’ is stupendously good. Yes, it’s kind of a drag that there’s so much hype around it. But there was a lot of hype around penicillin. And that worked out pretty well. If anything – and I’m truly sorry to say this – Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the US treasury, is actually better than the hype suggests. ★★★★★
Henry Hitchings for Evening Standard:
With its fresh take on the politics of opportunism, Hamilton feels sharply topical, but it’s also the best kind of history lesson. True, there are a few dramatically expedient inaccuracies, but Miranda knows which liberties are worth taking, and he makes the past exciting. At the same time, this is an extraordinarily uplifting vision of people from society’s margins becoming big-hitters. In short, believe the hype. ★★★★★
To celebrate the official opening of the musical, the cast revealed a mashup of Hamilton tracks and British pop hits, created behind the scenes at the Victoria Palace Theatre. It’s great! Watch it below.