Honestly?
Have wanted to see this for a long time, mainly to see what all the fuss is about as, having searched up the story, thought it sounded a bit dull. However, I decided that all the rave reviews couldn't be wrong so when my teenage daughter suggested it (it's particularly highly rated amongst her age group), I jumped at the chance.
We didn't go into it cold, we had a rough idea of the story and had listened to the soundtrack so was familiar with the songs. I also quite like rap and was well aware that the whole story is told in rhyme.
Unfortunately, we really didn't enjoy it, too long and pretty boring tbh. There's no denying the talent of the cast, how they remember all those lyrics is impressive. Unfortunately, we had trouble understanding what they were saying much of the time so frequently got lost and confused. What we could hear and have read since was pretty clever though! We also had trouble knowing who was who as some actors played more than one part. I tried hard to like it, I really did. There are a few good songs but they're frequently repeated and got on my nerves after a while. I just found the whole thing a bit meh, as did my daughter. I didn't completely hate it, and shed a tear at the end (my daughter didn't, saying she didn't care about any of them!) but we were pretty relieved when it was over. I'm saying this as a regular theatre goer who generally enjoys musicals but this is one of the worst I have seen.
Judging by the enthusiastic reaction of the audience, we were in the minority. There are reviews echoing my thoughts, but again they are in the minority. There was a suggestion of "emperors new clothes" in some of the them and I wonder if maybe there's some truth in that as I certainly don't consider my daughter or myself unintelligent, but we just didn't get it!!
So disappointed 😥