Hamilton and Me

Hamilton.

Goddamn, Hamilton.

First time I heard about Hamilton – and I mean, literally the first time the name Alexander Hamilton crossed into my sphere of knowledge – was a funny bit on the Daily Show in 2009. President Obama had responded to criticism that he was an elitist by hosting a Spoken Word and Poetry Slam at the White House, to which Jon Stewart railed against in a segment called ‘Old Man Stewart Shakes His Fist at the White House Poetry Slam’. In it, edited clips of the Slam were met with an artfully timed raised eyebrow and an incredulous ‘You’re rapping about Alexander Hamilton? This is kinda ridiculous’ from Stewart. I watched, laughed and promptly forgot about it.

Years later, rumblings across the sea were occurring. There was a big new thing on Broadway, bigger than Book of Mormon, the previous Big New Thing on Broadway. The name Lin Manuel Miranda kept cropping up on Colbert and Conan O’Brien and elsewhere on my Youtube playlist. Miranda charmingly rapped on How I Met Your Mother. Miranda was on board for the new Clements and Musker Disney musical. Miranda wrote the song for The Force Awakens cantina scene. Miranda was a new hotness for Hollywood.

Then the album dropped, and the world turned upside down. Cast members flooded late night TV and therefore Youtube. Miranda rapped about Button Quinett on Colbert. He spoke about Puerto Rico at Congress and then rapped about it on John Oliver. The Grammys and Tonys and the Pulitzer came and all anyone seemed to talk about was Hamilton.

Come July 2016. In a queue for Cursed Child tickets (which I got, natch) I thought as I was going to be online for an extended length of time, I may as well check out this soundtrack that was blowing us all away.

So I listened. Then, two and a half hours later, I listened again.

Hillary Clinton had quoted Hamilton at the DNC. The Hamilton Mixtape with Usher and Busta Rhymes was well underway. The Clements and Musker Disney film was leaning heavily on Miranda’s name in its marketing. ‘He never gon’ be President now’ was quoted after every Trump scandal. It was, not to put to too fine a point on it, effing huge by the time I’d got round to it.

When I find something new I like, I have a tendency to let it consume my waking days. I went in hard and I’m only just really coming out of the other side of it. I bought the Ron Chernow book. I saw In The Heights. I wrote my own version of the opening number about Skara Brae for my class. I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to get my nearest and dearest hooked. And tomorrow, tickets are available for the London show for those who signed up for the queue before October. There is a real chance that I will see this monster of a show in the near future and that’s so earth-shatteringly exciting that I had to write about it.

So there it is. The story of Hamilton and me. Some say that it’s too anti-British to play here, that it’s too Americanised and it has undertones of American Exceptionalism that go unchecked in a way that is uncouth and not to our sensitive British tastes. The theatre is elitist anyway, right? Who can afford to pay to go to London and see a musical?

All this is, quite frankly, bum. Tickets are paperless and can only be bought four at a time, so price gouging will not happen. London is so well connected to the barren wastelands of the North that anyone from anywhere in the country can get there. And the American Exceptionalism? Listen to the soundtrack and then we can talk.

Please God someone talk to me about Hamilton.