Dvd/150: MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)

30 years on, the film that catapulted Almodóvar to international acclaim still glows with colour, fun and warmth.

Pepa is desperate... she's burned the bed, filled the Gazpacho with tranquilizers and ripped the phone out because her lover Ivan has left her and is not returning her calls....

But she is interrupted by her friend Candela, on the run now the police have arrested her lover as a terrorist, and Carlos and Marisa who arrive to view the flat...   and Carlos is Ivan's estranged son.  Outside, Ivan's wife Lucia, institutionalized for 20 years after he left her, is out for revenge...

Almodóvar allows the farce to develop at it's own unforced pace which allow you to fully appreciate Carmen Maura's magnificent performance as Pepa.

Almodóvar's glorious ensemble includes Julieta Serrano (Lucia), Antonio Banderas (Carlos), Rossy de Palma (Marisa), Maria Barranco (Candela), Fernando Guillén (Ivan) and Kiti Manver as his lover.

Shelf or charity shop?  As long as I have a shelf... this will be on it!
 

 

ELIZABETH at the Barbican - The end of a Golden Age...

It's 35 years since I first stuck my nose into the Barbican... and I still feel uncomfortable there.  As welcoming as a 1960s East European airport with zero atmosphere or personality, it might also explain why I have enjoyed only a handful of productions in the theatre there; it's a rare performance that can make one forget the dispiriting surroundings outside the auditorium.  We were at the Barbican recently to see The Royal Ballet's production of Will Tuckett's ELIZABETH - needless to say the surroundings were no Covent Garden.

ELIZABETH was first performed in 2013 at the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, the site of Elizabeth's birth in the now-demolished Greenwich Palace. It was revived in 2016 as part of William Shakespeare's 400th anniversary celebrations at the Linbury Studio at Covent Garden and here it was again in the Barbican.

It is a chamber piece, with a company of seven, and runs for 90 minutes with no interval.  I am sure it worked better on a small stage, it's very sparse quality sometimes looked a bit strange on the enormous Barbican stage; a large golden panel served as the sole set piece but then with the wonderfully charismatic Zenaida Yanowsky reprising the role of Elizabeth, there was really only one place to look: she was mesmeric and held attention throughout.

Will Tuckett collaborated with Alasdair Middleton on the text which is drawn from Elizabeth's own writings along with contemporaneous writings by her intimates and also play-texts which used the Queen as it's subject.  Composer Martin Yates wrote his score using Tudor musical patterns and it sounded great played on a solo cello by the charmingly named Raphael Waallfisch, and it was sung by the baritone Julien Van Mellaerts who also doubled as a supernumerary.

Starting with Elizabeth slipping into her final illness, she spins back through her life and meets again the men who all came closest emotionally to The Virgin Queen; namely Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, the Duc D'Anjou, Sir Walter Raleigh and Robert Deveraux Earl of Essex.  These were all danced by Yuri Yanowsky, Zenaida's brother.

They danced together with an easy familiarity and he delineated the different men well but I think an additional male dancer might have broken up the similarity, although I suspect that was the intention, to show that Elizabeth was constantly attracted to the same man, indeed Yuri also danced Elizabeth's final partner, a figure signifying Death.

They were supported by Sonya Cullingford and Katie Deacon, and more excitingly for me, Samantha Bond lent her purring voice to commenting on the danced love affairs in Elizabeth's own words or the thoughts of those who witnessed the relationship themselves.  She was a lovely addition to the production and it was a pleasure to see her in such a key role.

As entertaining as it was, it did sometimes feel overly slight: it would have been dramatically more varied if another female dancer could have danced the role of Mary Queen of Scots, an important opponent in Elizabeth's life which might have provided a dramatic counter-point - the piece did rather give the impression that the only important thing in her 45 year reign was the men in her life which is a bit reductive.

Special mention must be made of Fay Fullerton's eye-catching costumes which were quick-changed into by Yanowsky at times; it must have been a hard job to design costumes which summoned up the Tudor look but were also easy to wear and to move with the dancer; the answer was the use of silk and organza printed with the heavier look of brocades.  Paule Constable's lighting also helped to show the changing focus of the story.

But it was the remarkable Zenaida Yanowsky who held the attention throughout: transitioning seamlessly through the different ages and moods of Elizabeth: imperious, flirtatious, frail, youthful, angry - she moved through her character's life with passion, grace and magnetism.

But she saved her biggest surprise at the end: gesturing for the applause to end, she produced a note from her bodice and, reading from it, told us how much she loved dancing the role which Tuckett had created just for her and especially dancing with Yuri.  Zenaida praised Tuckett for all their collaborations in the past, and said how special this was... as it was her last time dancing on stage!  There was a huge collective groan from the audience and her co-stars looked on in various states of surprise and shock.

Personally I think it's me and Owen... when we went to see her in MARGUERITE AND ARMAND last year it was actually her last night on the Covent Garden stage as she was stepping down from the Royal Ballet regular company!

Whatever, I have been very lucky to see the incomparable Zenaida live...

Dvd/150: NATTVARDSGASTERNA (Winter Light) (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

With NATTVARDSGASTERNA, Bergman proudly felt he had got his ideas onto the screen without compromising for commercial appeal.

Bergman's dissection of the loss of faith takes place in 77 real-time minutes: everything's pared to the bone.

Pastor Tomas Ericsson holds a nearly-empty mass on a bleak November morning.  Attending are Marta, a teacher who is having an unhappy relationship with him, and married couple Jonas and Karin.  Tomas is visited later by the couple: pregnant Karin tells Tomas that Jonas is struggling with depression, scared that China is developing an atomic bomb.  Alone with Jonas, Tomas tells him he cannot help as he has lost his faith, believing God helps no one.

Afterwards, atheist Marta attempts to comfort Tomas but they hear Jonas has committed suicide...

Sven Nykvist's stunning cinematography and unsentimental performances from Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Max von Sydow and Gunnel Lindblom make Bergman's vision unforgettable.

Shelf or charity shop?  A difficult film to watch at times but for Bergman's humanist view of man alone in the world, this is one for the shelf...

 

 

EASTWARD HO! at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - Read Not Dead!

Now that the Globe has emerged from it's extended period of being used as an adventure playground for backward adults, it is safe to return and on Sunday we had our first visit in two years.  But to ease our way in, we went to see a rehearsed reading rather than a fully-staged play.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse within The Globe stages a small season each year called Read Not Dead in which little-seen or known plays get an airing where they are meant to be experienced - on a stage.  The rules of the game are that a director will gather a small cast together, present them with the texts in the morning then in the late afternoon they present the blocked and rehearsed reading to a paying audience; the idea being that the dust will be blown off the pages by the nervous energy of cast and audience alike.

Sunday's re-discovered play was EASTWARD HO! which was first performed in 1605 and was a collaboration between the playwrights Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston, three noted writers combining to give the London stages the latest in cutting-edge satirical City comedy... it proved a bit too cutting-edge: King James I took umbrage at the jokes about the Scots and cash-for-titles resulting in Chapman and Jonson ending up in prison for a few months... luckily Marston wasn't around at the time so wasn't imprisoned!

One would have to know exactly what to look for nowadays to see what could have caused such offence but it fits the play nicely into the Globe's cross-season of plays dealing with stage censorship.  The play has occasionally be revived but they are few and far between - there was even a musical version in 1981 that starred Richard O'Brien (in another attempt to broaden his ROCKY HORROR persona), Belinda Sinclair, Anita Dobson, Philip Sayer and Clive Merrison, with a score by Nick Bicat and ROCK FOLLIES writer Howard Schuman - it lasted 45 performances.

Needless to say, it was all a bit upsy-dutch as we were let in to the auditorium late to be greeted with the rather ominous news that they hadn't finished rehearsing the last act.  The running time was 3 hours plus - towards the end I honestly thought I would have to leave as the purgatorial hard benches were KILLING my back.

I survived however and I must say it was a very enjoyable experience - it indeed had the shaggy, missed cues, stumbling quality you might expect but the cast all pitched in and there was even a memorable performance or two.

The sprawling plot has a goldsmith William Touchstone having apprentice trouble: Quicksilver wants to get out into the world and live an uproarious, drunken life while Golding is studious and diligent in his work.  Touchstone's two daughters mirror this pairing: snobbish Gertrude is desperate to marry into money and be a proper lady while Mildred is rueful and quiet.  The whole Touchstone family are excited when Gertrude seems to get her wish and marry Sir Petronel Flash, a Knight who has a huge estate in Essex.  The trouble is... he hasn't!  He is broke and looking forward to receiving Gertrude's large dowry.

Touchstone chucks Quicksilver out of the house then promotes Golding and allows him and Mildred to marry.  Quicksilver and Sir Flash meet and decide to use the Touchstone dowry to sail to Virginia to seek their fortune with Quicksilver's Jewish money-lender friend Security... the trouble is that the captain and crew are drunk and the ship sinks while still in the Thames!

Needless to say it all ends up in a court but as all are flawed in one way or another, it all ends up happily!  The characters are so vivid, larger-than-life and silly, it is a surprise that the play is not better known.  Director Jason Morell gave it all a winning brio and elicited good performances from Michael Matus as Touchstone (it was fun to see the different uses he had for his catch-phrase "Work upon that now!"), Ralph Davis as Quicksilver (luckily he had clean pants on as he had a lengthy scene with his trousers round his ankles), Tok Stephen as the sober Golding and Nicholas Boulton as the wobbly-kneed, penniless Sir Petronel Flash.

Apart from those damn benches, it was very enjoyable.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD at the Donmar - dwindling into marriage...

The playwright William Congreve devoted only 7 of his 58 years to the theatre but he left us with a handful of plays that stand with the best of the genre of Restoration comedy: THE DOUBLE DEALER, LOVE FOR LOVE and his most famous work THE WAY OF THE WORLD, which gave the canon Millament and Mirabell, one of the most enduring and sparky of couples.

Under Josie Rourke's artistic directorship the Donmar has frankly overdone the gender-blind, non-traditionalist casting as well as modern-settings for classic plays so I was quietly worried what was going to be pulling focus from the text this time, but director James Macdonald puts no such hindrances in the way of Congreve the playwright and the production was a pure delight.

On Anna Fleischle's panelled dark wood set, we follow the twists and turns of Congreve's convoluted tale of love and money: Mirabell wants to marry the captivating Millament but there is a problem: to get her full dowry the match must be agreed by Millament's aunt Lady Wishfort - and she hates Mirabell for his licentious lifestyle (and more importantly, she is still smarting from him telling her that he wasn't in love with her when she believed he was).

It doesn't help that Mirabell was once the lover of Lady Wishfort's daughter who he helped marry off to his dashing if untrusted fellow man-about-town Fainall who, in turn, is currently having an affair with the sly Mrs Marwood.  If Mirabell's life wasn't complicated enough, he has plotted that his servant Waitwell is secretly married to Lady Wishfort's maid Foible and together they will arrange a plot: Waitwell will pretend to be Mirabell's rich uncle Sir Rowland who will then woo Lady Wishfort, marry her and then all Lady Wishfort has to do to stop any public shame in marrying a mere servant is to agree to Mirabell and Millament's marriage!  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Plenty.

Lady Wishfort has arranged for Millament to be married to the country squire Sir Willful Witwoud who arrives at the same time as Waitwell disguised as Sir Rowland but more disastrously, Mrs Marwood overhears Foible and Mrs Fainall discussing Mirabell's plot and she tells her lover Fainall who sees the perfect opportunity to enact revenge on them all and lay claim to the Wishfort fortune and Millament's dowry.

The plot spins so fast that I admit at times I sat back and waited for it to come round like a carousel and so jump on again but the ride made it all worthwhile.  James Macdonald keeps the characters spinning like giddy tops as everyone's plans fly up in the air only to land finally in a pattern that suits everyone; indeed there are so many resolutions to tie up in the final scene that the engine does finally run down as exposition tops exposition... and then a dance... and then another few lines... but coming so soon after his revivals of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, it's nice to see Macdonald turn his laser-like direction on an English classic.

Macdonald's cast has also had to face some twists since rehearsals: Linda Bassett had been cast as Lady Wishfort but dropped out of the cast for personal reasons a month before opening night and then shortly after the play opening, Alex Beckett who had been playing Waitwell died unexpectedly.  That is enough to throw any cast off-kilter but that they have banded together and are giving such a fine ensemble performance is to their credit.  Standouts included the very funny double-act of Fisayo Akanade and Simon Manyonda as the fops Witwoud and Petulant who excel at getting drunk, Sarah Hadland as the mischievous Foible and Robin Pearce who has taken on the role of Waitwell in such unhappy circumstances.

Jenny Jules and Tom Mison gave us a pair of very hissable villains as the icy Mrs Marwood and the conniving Fainall.  However one of the main joys of the evening was Haydn Gwynne as the aristocratic Lady Wishfort.  As I said she was a replacement during the rehearsal period for Linda Bassett - who I always thought an odd choice - but Haydn Gwynne rose to the challenge superbly.

Lady Wishfort could easily be played as a gorgon but Gwynne gave her a human dimension as well as being very funny - she was in her element in the scene where Lady Wishfort runs through her options in seducing Sir Rowland, should she lie seductively on the couch affecting a languid air or wandering around her room lost in her thoughts - all of which are acted out in increasing giddy desperation?

Mirabell and Millament are on a par with Shakespeare's Benedick and Beatrice - a couple you know will end up together but they have to get over the plot's hurdles!  I must admit it took a while for me to warm to Justine Mitchell's performance as Millament as she played it on a seemingly different beat to the rest of the cast; her slightly arch, hesitant delivery gave me the idea that she was commenting on a performance rather than actually giving one.  Her slight Irish lilt was intriguing too.

However she shone in the play's famous 'proviso' scene, Millament then Mirabell lay down conditions which must be agreed to before a marriage is contemplated. Millament will not get up early, not be addressed to as 'dear' or 'darling', not have her liberty curtailed because she is married, to have her own letters, to keep her tea table for herself.... if he grants them, then she may - in the play's most famous line - "by degrees, dwindle into a wife".  Mirabell then counter-offers that he wants a wife who will not keep company with scandalous women or fops, will not use excessive beauty products, won't partake in strong drinks etc.  It is a gloriously written scene - sparkling, teasing, well-argued, and utterly modern.

Luckily the wonderful Geoffrey Streatfeild was playing Mirabell, and he was a delight from start to finish; his Mirabell could play the dandyish man-about-town but he was also the cleverest man in the room, secretly holding all the cards and, although the final scene where all the subplots are resolved, was a bit long-winded, he pulled the surprise resolutions out of his hat with great style.  He is a class act and his dry, witty performance was excellent.

I am glad my first time seeing this Congreve classic was with such a fine production, one that any future versions will have a hard time measuring up to.

MANON at Covent Garden: Love, Death and MacMillan

In 1731 Abbé Prévost published "L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescault" to instant notoriety and it's print run banned in France.  Pirated copies filtered out to an eager public and Prévost's tale of the tragic love affair of Manon and des Grieux went on to inspire writers and to be referenced in novels such as "The Lady of The Camillias", "The Red and The Black", "Venus In Furs" and "The Portrait of Dorian Gray".

The tale is also the basis of seven silent and sound films, four operas, a Japanese musical and two ballets!  The last of these dance versions was choreographed by the great Kenneth MacMillan for the Royal Ballet in 1974 and although it was greeted with unfavourable reviews, it became an instant hit with audiences and last week I saw it's 274th performance at Covent Garden.

MacMillan had been looking for a new, sweeping ballet which would show off not only the Royal Ballet stars but also give the ensemble a chance to shine, and the teaming locations of Manon and des Grieux's love proved ideal.  It was to be the first original work after his controversial ANASTASIA and it can be seen as a further exploration of where the physical boundaries were for the female and male dancers of his time (and after).

"Manon Lescault" had been suggested to MacMillan as a subject by the designer Nicholas Georgiades although it had been on the choreographer's mind since it had been mooted to the previous Royal Ballet supremo Sir Frederick Ashton but he had rejected it as he felt it was too close to his "Camille" ballet MARGUERITE AND ARMAND.  There's only so many demi-mondaines to go around...

MacMillan asked composer and conductor Leighton Lucas to compile a score from the work of Jules Massenet whose opera version of the tale was in the Royal Opera repertoire and it is a remarkable achievement as it does seem like a whole unified score.

I will agree with the criticism levelled at the piece that it's hard to feel totally engaged with the characters but maybe it is down to the performers dancing on any given night, I am sure if Steven McRae had been dancing des Grieux I would have been more involved in his character but he was unable to dance due to an injury.  Instead we had fellow-Australian Alexander Campbell as des Grieux and Akane Takada as the eponymous anti-heroine.

Young Manon is on her way to a convent when her coach stops at a bustling inn outside Paris; there she meets her brother Lescault who promptly notices a fellow-passenger is lusting after her, Lescault, an enterprising heel, takes the passenger into the inn to sell his sister to him.  In the courtyard Manon meets young student des Grieux and the pair - of course - fall in love at first sight.  They decide to flee to Paris immediately, leaving Lescault high and dry - and the old man penniless as Manon has stolen his money!  Another rich man, Monsieur GM, approaches Lescault and offers a reward if he too can have Manon.  Lescault takes up the challenge...

In Paris, Manon and des Grieux are living in his lodgings and, despite their obvious love for each other, as soon as Lescault and Monsieur GM track her down and entice her with Monsieur's riches Manon chooses diamonds over love.  Some time later, at a debauched party at a brothel, the four meet again and Manon intimates to des Grieux that she still loves him.  Attempting to deprive the rich man of his cash, des Grieux is discovered cheating at cards and they flee to his lodgings, where Monsieur appears with police to arrest Manon as a prostitute; in the melée Lescault is killed.

Deported to New Orleans as a common prostitute, Manon is singled out by a lecherous gaoler, but des Grieux, who has followed her to America, murders the gaoler and, again, the couple are on the run but in the shadowy swamps of Louisiana their love reaches it's tragic climax.

Any difficulty in emotionally engaging with the relentlessly shallow characters is offset by the glorious sweep of action that MacMillan conjures - his production is recreated here by Christopher Saunders and Julie Lincoln.  MacMillan's wish that his MANON would showcase the ensemble is fulfilled as they give colour and life to Manon's world.  Georgiades' designs also help MacMillan's subtext that the opulent world that Manon aspires to sits like a bubble on top of a society of desperate poverty and danger, his sets are always juxtaposed against backdrops of decaying clothes hanging as silent witnesses to the corrupt world of Monsieur GM, where people can be discarded if they overstep their class or usefulness.

As I said, while technically excellent, Takana and Campbell were low on star wattage but the pas de deux that define their relationship were thrilling to watch: full of the passion and desire of new love, then more hesitant and incomplete as Manon wavers between the worlds of love and wealth, then the desperation of love in the face of death.

The supporting performances shone brighter: James Hay was excellent as the opportunistic Lescault and was well partnered by Yuhui Choe as his mistress, Thomas Whitehead brought his own air of menace to the lethal Monsieur GM and Kristen McNally also gave the Madame a suitably decadent panache.

MANON, an enduring testament to the genius of Sir Kenneth MacMillan.

HAMILTON at Victoria Palace - In The Room Where It Happened...

There is an odd alchemy that happens in a theatre that is the home for a hit show; the audience are excited that they are the lucky ones in the seats while the cast - especially within the first few months of opening - are confident in their show and their contribution within it and can relax in the joys of a good run.

It is always an exciting atmosphere to experience, it's happened a few times for me in the National Theatre: Richard Eyre's original production of GUYS AND DOLLS, the premiere of WAR HORSE, and the recent revivals of ANGELS IN AMERICA and FOLLIES; in the West End there were the original casts of 42nd STREET, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE BOOK OF MORMON and on Broadway there was Patti LuPone's GYPSY and WICKED.

And now I can add HAMILTON at the Victoria Palace...

As the World and it's significant other knows, HAMILTON is Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical biography of the American founding father and first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, a man who could obviously start a fight in an empty room and who ended up dead after a duel with the Vice-President and longtime adversary Aaron Burr in 1804.  However the term 'hip-hop musical' does the show a dis-service as Miranda's punchy, intricate score incorporates rap, hip-hop, r&b and pop but all filtered through a definite Broadway musical idiom.

While appearing in his earlier Tony award-winning musical IN THE HEIGHTS, Miranda read Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton and was taken with the idea that this controversial historical figure had been a poor white immigrant from the West Indies who had risen to the higher echelons of American power.  After a lengthy workshop period HAMILTON opened off-Broadway in 2015 and quickly moved to Broadway later that year, winning the Pulitzer Prize and 11 Tony Awards.  The London production has just won 7 Olivier Awards. 

The show is totally sung/rapped-through but not for Miranda the dreary, bum-clenching  recitative beloved by Lloyd Webber but his tricky, intricate rhymes are spun across the stage with fizzing dexterity by the cast which keep you involved in the fast-moving action of the plot of Hamilton's rise from poor immigrant to George Washington's secretary and then onto the USA's first Treasury Secretary.  I had "Aaron Burr, sir" stuck in my mind afterward...  I hasten to add, Owen and I appeared to be the only ones in the theatre who did not know the score: the girls next to me screamed with laughter ON every joke line and knew every swerve of the music.

Thomas Kail's production is a whirl of inventive movement and, certainly in the first half, conjures up the feeling of a country in the tumult of changing times.  The second half - as the plot concentrates on Hamilton's personal and political troubles - feels becalmed with one too many standard love songs for Hamilton and his wife Eliza.  It's a natural consequence of telling a tale of life after war but it is noticeable.

As good as Kail's direction is, equal praise must go the non-stop choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, the ensemble helping to shape the story through dynamic moves and martial line-ups.  David Korins' tiered wooden stage certainly gives the show a strong look, Paul Tazewell's costumes help define character - I particularly liked Jefferson's flashy mauve and purple outfit which immediately gave his cocky, larger-than-life character a Prince-like sheen.  Our seats in the upper circle also gave us the chance to fully appreciate Howell Binkley's excellent lighting.

My main problem with HAMILTON was with the female characters.  Eliza and her sisters Angelica and Peggy are introduced with the swaggering "The Schuyler Sisters" - think Destiny's Child in hoop skirts - giving them the persona of liberated women who want to be in the thick of intellectual company.  Eliza marries Hamilton while Anjelica hides her unrequited love for him in writing letters.  At the end of the first act Anjelica leaves for married life in England but as she is a much more interesting character than dreary Eliza, the show suffers for her being sidelined.  Hamilton, of course, has an affair with a married woman which bring shame on him and Eliza but apart from a solo number along the lines of "You Hurt Me And I Hate You", all Miranda can have her do is mope around the stage being noble.  For a show that aims to be radical in it's story-telling, Miranda's stereotypical female characters are disappointing. Owen also pointed out that the female ensemble's costumes of figure-hugging leggings and tight bodices was all the more obvious against the male ensemble's loose clothes.  A CHORUS LINE's 'tits and ass' song seemed all too relevant.

As I said, the cast are feeling pretty fearless as they are in THE show to see so there are plenty of eye-catching performances.  Jamael Westman certainly commands the stage with his rangy height and swagger but Hamilton remains a cypher; everyone says what they think about him and we build up the character through the reactions of others to him but he remains ultimately unknowable, so his fate left me unmoved.  It's a knowing irony that Hamilton goes through the show telling the world he's not going to throw away his shot... but he does in the end.

Westman is easily overshadowed by the sheer star quality of Giles Terera as Aaron Burr, an actor whose time has definitely come and who steals every scene he is in.  His Burr is the respected man who cannot quite make the top table, who loses out to the flashier, more headstrong Hamilton for the big jobs and whose needling jealousy only grows with every slight.  Playing Salieri to Hamilton's Mozart, Burr finally gets his chance to influence affairs and they come to an irreversible breaking point.  Terera's watchful reserve explodes in the second act with the number "The Room Where It Happens".  Tipping a silent nod to Sondheim's "Someone In A Tree" from PACIFIC OVERTURES, it's about how it's all about being in the right place at the right time.

There is also a teasing, lip-smacking performance by Jason Pennycooke: he is a passionate Lafayette in the first act but really explodes in the second act as Hamilton's other béte noir Thomas Jefferson.  Embodying the cocky swagger of Prince or James Brown, his Jefferson turns up from the safety of France after the Independence wars are won and sings the jazzy "What'd I Miss?"  Jefferson then locks horns with Hamilton over the latter's finance bill - the verbal spats in Congress nicely played as rap turf battles.  It is when Burr and Jefferson both run for President that Hamilton, having to chose between his two evils makes a fatal choice.  Along with Terera, it's great to see Pennycooke finally have a role to show off all his talents.

Obioma Ugoala as George Washington certainly had the gravitas to play the role but his voice was more suitable to singing than to the rap recitative.  As I have said above, the roles for the women are frustrating in that the roles are imbalanced: Rachel John tears the roof off the Victoria Palace with her mid-first act number "Satisfied" - a real showstopper - but then has little to do but join in group numbers while the Steam-Whistle Soprano Of Death that is Rachelle Ann Go commandeers the second act as Eliza.  Her big solo "Burn" doesn't so much shred our hearts as our ear-drums and she also takes the main part of the last song "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" - an honour which really should go to Rachel John.

There are many witty put-downs in Miranda's lyrics but there are few musical moments where you can just sit back and enjoy them - the brunt of the songs are rammed with exposition - but luckily for us (and the show) there are several musical interludes from the quite delicious Michael Jibson as King George III.  He is absolutely hilarious in King George's dummy-spitting vignettes, they have the same tune but the attitude changes:  "You'll Be Back" has George in a snit that his subjects have chosen Independence, "What Comes Next" has the King scoffing at the idea the Americans can govern themselves, and finally "I Know Him" has George rubbing his hands in glee at the internecine fighting following Washington's retirement.  Jibson just won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Musical Actor and it is justly deserved, despite only 9 minutes stage-time.

The booking method for HAMILTON has come in for criticism for the mouse-in-a-maze way of actually getting to your seat.  We booked when the tickets went on sale but no actual tickets were issued; Owen had to turn up with the original e-mail confirmation, the credit card used and a Government-issued ID!  Just to get in to a theatre...  The reasoning is that it will ensure that the seats go to paying punters and not ticket touts.  But is this really about people power or just a way for Cameron Mackintosh to get every single pound?  Owen discovered the day before that the card he booked with so long before the show had been thrown away when it expired, luckily a call to Ticketmaster got a substitute card put on the booking!  We had to queue for about five minutes to get to the door, they checked the e-mail and card, ticket stubs were printed using a PDQ-style machine... and we were in.  "Allow an hour" to gain entrance?  It took about 15 minutes all-in-all.  Though they never asked to see the passport... go figure!

I came out of it quietly thinking I would like to see it again.  But knowing the clamour for tickets I would probably get tickets for the 383rd cast change with Aston Merrygold from JLS as Alexander Hamilton, Kenny Lynch as Aaron Burr and Sinitta as Angelica.  Maybe they will have filmed it by then?  Lin-Manuel Miranda said last year it was on the cards, now THAT will be a casting feeding-frenzy...

So there you are... HAMILTON not only lives up to the hype, it transcends it. An abiding memory of the show is the explosion of applause that greeted the line “Immigrants, they get the job done". This American cultural immigrant does just that.

HAMILTON... NOW AND FOREVER