Sylvia review: Suffragettes hip-hop musical is the new Hamilton

With its thrilling fusion of rap, hip-hop, R&B, soul and funk, Sylvia is the new Hamilton. It’s just as brilliantly staged as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking musical and, thanks to a story that’s much closer to home, resonates even more for UK audiences.

Instead of the political wheelings and dealings of the Founding Fathers, Kate Prince’s show has women’s rights on its mind as feisty matriarch Emmeline Pankhurst leads the Suffragettes in their fight for the female vote whilst butting heads with her daughter Sylvia, who wants equality for all.

The musical is sung-through, save for the occasional bit of spoken dialogue, and Prince’s lyrics examine the many different strands of feminism in what often plays (as scripted by Prince and Priya Parmar) like a parallel to today’s divisive gender debates.

Throw in a Labour leader named Keir (in this case the party’s founder Keir Hardie) and deliberately anachronistic references such as “mansplaining”, “totes amaze” and “hear me now” and you have a show that may be mainly set in the early 1900s but which feels thrillingly contemporary.

As the indomitable Emmeline, Beverley Knight laments: “As a woman I was born with no voice.” But of course she’s talking about the character, not herself. As proven in every stage role she takes on, arguably this nation’s best-ever soul singer is a powerhouse vocalist who blasts you back in your seats with passion and power.

Here she’s not afraid to delve into Emmeline’s darker side, just as Sharon Rose doesn’t shy away from Sylvia’s more militant tendencies. A Hamilton alumni, Rose is also the possessor of a powerful voice. When she and Knight duet they’re the most combustible combination since Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer went into the studio to duel it out on ‘Enough is Enough (No More Tears)’.

Mention must also be made of a scene-stealing Jade Hackett, who brings comic sass to the role of Churchill’s mum, and American Alex Gaumond is convincingly Scottish as a sweetly romantic Keir Hardie. But everybody in the cast shines brightly as they sing their hearts out and dance their socks off on the various levels of designer Ben Stones’ arrestingly monochrome set.

And it’s the highest of praise to say that Josh Cohen and DJ Walde’s music is every bit as good as Lin-Manuel’s Hamiltonscore. One storming tune follows another and Prince’s choreography mesmerisingly mixes street dance with classical moves, powering along a musical that never pauses for breath.

History lessons don’t get more engrossing and high-energy than this one, and it’s a story that needs to be told. Miranda set the bar incredibly high with his invention of a new form of musical theatre – using modern music, colour-blind casting and contemporary dance to bring the past to life. Sylvia is more than up to the task of matching it.

At one point in the show Knight declares “this is next level”. Too right.

Rating: 5/5

Sylvia is at the Old Vic, London, until 8 April. Get tickets here.