Hamilton Tickets

Hamilton is a pop cultural phenomenon. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s multi-award-winning musical about America’s founding fathers can count Barack and Michelle Obama among its many famous fans - not to mention the countless rap superstars who jostled for a spot on The Hamilton Mixtape: Busta Rhymes, Alicia Keys, Usher and many more besides.

But how did a Broadway musical become a big hit with presidents and hip-hop heavies alike? Hamilton is, after all, an improbable thing: a three-hour history lesson imparted through rap. For the most part, the answer lies with its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda - a prodigious lyricist, composer and actor who pulled Hamilton together and then played the lead role himself.

Alexander Hamilton - the man on the $10 bill - is arguably the highest achiever in American history. In Miranda’s hands he becomes a towering figure: a political genius, tainted only by his tendency for hubris. The show follows him from his revolutionary student days, fighting for America’s independence from British rule in the late 18th century, through his exhaustive efforts to configure a constitution for this new nation.

Politically, Hamilton felt particularly resonant: here was America’s origin myth, its core history, couched in the culture of people of colour - with each founding father played by an African-American. On Broadway its presence felt outright potent, never more so than when the original cast delivered a curtain call speech directly to Vice-President Mike Pence.

Artistically, however, Hamilton is a masterpiece. Its plot pits powerplay against high romance, hanging everything off its hero’s character and supplying a strong supporting cast of political heavyweights: General George Washington, built like a brick wall; a fancypants Thomas Jefferson, the coolest cat in the new country; Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s envious and estimable rival. A cast spitting rhythms and spinning rhymes in constitutional rap battles makes this the West End at its very best.