For those of you not up on theatre vernacular, the Lawrence Olivier Awardss are for the best in London theatre (the equivalent of our Tonys). "Translate means "How well will it do outside of Broadway? Rent didn’t translate well, Avenue Q did. It’s a tough concept, and nobody knows what will work and where.
But Hamilton, the musical Andrew Lloyd Webber described as "about a founding father of American nobody ever heard of, done in hip hop style,got 7 Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical. So there!
“No one heard of” seems off given that the guy is on our $10 bills but I agree that few people knew anything about him whereas most people could rattle off a factoid or two about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and other money-dudes.
I don’t think the Hanoverians in general are the most popular set of monarchs. And this is the same play that refers to John Adams as “a fat motherfucker” and dresses up Thomas Jefferson as a pimp.
I just don’t think we give a toss really - we like making fools of politicians and royals. And we don’t have any particular opinion about George III - I get the impression he looms much larger for Americans than for Brits.
Yeah, as I was writing that I was having a hard time coming up with beloved British monarchs of the past that the Brits might take offense at poking fun at. Poking fun at monarchs is a traditional British hobby.
And he doesn’t loom very large for Americans either. To give an example - in my daughters AP US History class (a high school class where you can get college credit) one of the girls said “I don’t care about this George guy, this is AMERICAN History.” It had to be explained to her that if one was asked to answer questions or write an essay on the American Revolution, that George guy might come up. Most Americans would be lucky to name George, much less put the correct number of Is after his name.
You all aren’t nearly as upset about losing that war as we are exited about having won it, either.
I had to come back to this because it so echos social media offenderati.
Lloyd Webber is a little dry in his humour. It may be easy to find offence in 240 characters. I suspect he was drawing on his early experiences developing a story about Evita Peron
Well, this (albeit not a comedy) got some BAFTAs and a slew of London Critic’s Circle Film Awards so I would venture that they’re cool with mocking that particular king.
I’m not sure if George IV had a single redeeming quality - other than perhaps he was so lazy and incompetent that the power of the monarchy diminished during his regency and reign. I’ve always sort of liked his brother Edward IV though - also lazy and incompetent, but had the will to live long enough for Victoria to turn eighteen, saving England from her nightmare of a mother.
