The noise inside London’s Victoria Palace Theatre as Leslie Odom Jr. makes his entrance is deafening.
Very few performers could produce a reaction like this — from the usually polite, etiquette-obeying British crowds — on the West End. His return as Aaron Burr, the slippery frenemy of our titular founding father, is history in the making: For the first time since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical hit the city nearly a decade ago, a cast member from the original Broadway production is gracing the stage.
From July 3 until Sep. 5 this year, Odom Jr. is showing fans a whole new side to him. That is, the select few thousand who successfully nabbed a ticket to one of his shows. The run sold out in minutes, proving once again that Hamilton‘s influence on pop culture holds strong 10 years on from its debut, or indeed that its enormous fanbase remains loyal to the actors who originated these now world-famous roles.
“For a show with this [amount of] worldwide acclaim and success, I think humility is a good thing,” laughs Odom Jr. over Zoom in late July, having had a few weeks to settle into life in London. “So I am humbled by the impact of the show,” he says, though he adds: “I don’t totally understand it.”
