King George III ruled the stage at this year’s West End Live extravaganza – and finished his performance with a spectacularly-timed tribute to his great, great, great, great, great-grandson, our own III.
Hamilton favourite Joel Montague, who plays the hapless king in the smash hit show, proved to be a crowd favourite – greeted with cheers and whoops worthy of a pop megastar from the audience of 35,000 packing ’s Trafalgar Square.
He sang the Hamilton favourite You’ll Be Back then – in full regal regalia – stood back and dramatically announced we would now pay ‘tribute to His Majesty King Charles III’. Seconds later, the first of 70 aircraft swooped across the sky in a birthday flypast to the current monarch, who was watching from his balcony at the nearby Palace.
In a weekend filled with theatrical drama, it was hard to beat. And it explained why, up until that moment, the stage manager had been consulting his watch and looking increasingly stressed. But in the end, the handover from King George to King Charles – timed down to the very last second – came off perfectly.
It wasn’t the only triumph, as act after act delivered – in the West End’s biggest performance of the year. West End Live is effectively Glasto for musical theatre lovers – a free two-day event, featuring more than 50 current Theatreland shows, organised and primarily funded by Westminster City Council supported by the Society of London Theatre and Mayor of London.
Paying an emotional tribute to Tina Turner, actor Kristina Love – star of the musical about the legend who died last month – said: ‘It’s an honour to be here continuing her legacy,’ before launching into The Best and a Nutbush City Limits/Proud Mary medley.
Other standout performances came from new star Charlie Stemp in Crazy for You – the show that’s garnered five-star reviews across the board – singalongs from the cast of Mamma Mia! and the ultimate singalong to Les Miserable’s One Day More.
There was also the welcome theatrical unveiling of the new Cabaret cast – Mason Alexander Park and Maude Apatow as Sally Bowles – who proved to be catnip to the crowd. The only glitch – a soundtrack failure during Grease – didn’t matter because the crowd took over so enthusiastically that they drowned out the cast.
It proved to be a weekend of fandom and friendship.
Hannah Watson, 23, came down from Edinburgh to join pals Katie Davies, (27, from the Midlands and Jade Holpin, 27, from Kent), in the queue at 3am.
Hannah said: ‘We all used to go solo to see Frozen. We met each other at the show and became friends and decided to come to West End Live together. We queued from the early hours to make sure we got close to the stage when they opened the gates.’
The girls were most looking forward (obviously) to seeing Frozen then Glory Ride – but were headed straight to the theatre afterwards to watch their favourite shows again. ‘We’re leaving immediately after to see the matinee of Glory Ride then the evening performance of Frozen!’ said Katie.
Meanwhile, waitress Toni Bishop, 26, finished a shift at midnight and came straight to join the queue snaking Trafalgar Square in the early hours. She said: ‘I haven’t had any sleep, although I tried to nap on the pavement. I joined the queue at one am and it was worth it, because I’m right at the front.’
Natalie Slonecki, 20, from Liverpool, said: ‘We rode Boris Bikes to get to the queue for one am. I’m studying musical theatre, so this is the best weekend of the year.’
Ryan Lehane, 19, a criminology student at Herts university said: ‘Last year, I made a friend in the crowd as we queued, so we met up again this year to queue through the night.’
Alongside the thousands of other fans, they weren’t disappointed. To (mis)quote The Jersey Boys in one of the biggest singalongs of the weekend, it was all Too Good To be True…
