talkFORUM

The play was very funny (and sad of course, given the subject matter). Fortunately it was short, so the usual boredom that sets in with plays, didn't kick in.

My name is Jean (Tennisman) Valjean.

Who on here is Javert?

Hillman definitely

Saw the much hyped Hamilton last week at that there Victoria theatre in that there London.

Well this isn't the second coming of the musical but then again its also not the emperors new clothes of a musical either. For all the talk of the radical introduction of hip-hop and rap into the world of the musical for around 80% of the runtime this is actually a very conservative take on the strictures of musical theatre.

I personally don't think it fully works - it runs out of steam drastically in the second half and there seems to be an awful lot of repetition going on with the songs. Its structurally odd in that it feels the need to wheel out King George three times when he has absolutely no requirement to be in the show at all, that he gets the biggest pops of the show is telling about the other issues I had with the show.

Which were the two leads.

Jamael Westman doesn't give anything in his performance to indicate why Hamilton was such a charismatic and successful character. Here we have a Hamilton that is whiney, arrogant, stupid but yet still reaching the heights of achievement but Westman doesn't invoke the character with any of those attributes - he appeared to be going through the motions.

The performance of Giles Terera is odd - from the moment he opens his mouth to start singing he sounds off, to my ear it sounded like he was being autotuned and not very well which led to several moments where he sounded like he was playing Dalek Number 3 in Doctor Who - The Musical. And he's our narrator and our entry point into this 300 year old world but the sound coming out of his microphone is off putting.

The other 19 performers fill their roles adequately with Waylon Jacobs making an exuberant Thomas Jefferson and Marsha Songcome heaving her cleavage in an engaging way at Hamilton in her role as his Mistress and also in her second role as the sister in law of our titular lead.

Its an entertaining 7/10 but I'd probably wait until the hype (and prices) die down before going to see it.

Watched Coraline (opera) at the Barbican Centre last weekend. The outstanding quality of the set production, the singing and the orchestra made up for a few cringe-worthy moments. 3/5. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/rnc ... l-over-it/

I want to see Puccini's Turandot: