This weekend, my wife and I sat down to watch a filmed version of the stage show Hamilton on the new Disney+ service. We had been meaning to get tickets for years, but a combination of cost, time and availability that had made it the hottest ticket in town for so long meant we had never quite got round to it. So as we hunkered down with our takeaway at 8pm on Saturday, ears attuning to the rapid-fire hip-hop style in which the lines are delivered through our ten year old TV, we were very excited indeed to be finally seeing it.
We knew it wasn’t going to be quite the same as the immersive experience you get in a theatre when we had to break occasionally to help the kids to sleep. But as the performance unfolded, we laughed at the jokes, we admired the skill of the creators and actors and right at the end we cried at the wonder of it all, as we would have done had we actually been there. Although something in me felt a bit sad – it made me crave the sensation of being in a crowd of people who are all on the same wave as you. You feel the vibrations from the orchestra pit, get the joke, and anticipate the high note all at the same time. Without that, it all felt a bit hollow.
The next day, I woke up with musical theatre in my ears and went for my usual bike ride, repeatedly climbing a quiet road nearby. With one little earpiece in (safety first people!), I listened to some background music to keep my brain from over-thinking and the legs pumping. This time, I chose to listen to a musical that I had taken my mum to see in January, which had only just started to get going in the West End when we went into lockdown – Come From Away. It’s based on the true story of 38 planes full of people that were diverted away from New York on September 11th (2001) to a remote airport in Newfoundland, Canada and the residents of the town of Gander who dropped everything to look after these 7,000 souls.
As I began my slightly lazy hill ascent and listened to the stirring opening track ‘Welcome to the Rock’ that thunders away with a relentless, pounding Celtic rhythm, I felt a knot of emotion rise in me. I would usually have put this down to white wine but I haven’t touched a drop in months, so what was this? The story is about that day back in 2001 as it happens for this collection of unsuspecting islanders who opened their homes to strangers in need from all over the world. At first hearing the news from NY, like the rest of us who can remember where we were, then scrambling to take care of a mounting toll of guests. The stories are not of fear or suspicion but of wonderful open kindness and of people finding their humanity in a dark situation. And I suspect that is what I found so touching as I wept onto my lycra; that when things go sideways it’s our humanity that comes bubbling to the surface more than anything else.
And so it stiffened my resolve to be kinder in these times than I always feel like being; to my family, my friends, my colleagues as I gripe about being stuck in the same place on lockdown. Those people in Gander could have pulled up the shutters when the planes landed until the problem went away, but they didn’t. They put their daily conflicts, worries, privacy, sleep, their whole lives on hold to care for people who didn’t have the resources to help themselves.
So the next time I sit at home watching a brand new piece of premium content, on a paid-for subscription video service, eating my local takeaway, sad that I can’t go to the west end in person, I will try to think what can I do to help someone who might be worse off than me. I’m already looking forward to ‘Lockdown!’ the stage show. Sorry – too soon?
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