Hugh Jackman Is the Greatest Showman

Hugh Jackman may be the only male movie star who feels equally at home in both superhero tights and tap shoes. He spent the majority of 2022 baton waving as Harold Hill in the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of The Music Man opposite Sutton Foster, then followed that by taking his Wolverine claws out of retirement to star opposite Ryan Reynolds in Marvel’s mega-blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine.

Now Jackman’s pendulum is swinging back to Broadway as he embarks on a residency of sorts at Radio City Music Hall. Jackman’s performing a concert called From New York with Love, scheduled for about 21 dates between now and October. (Despite the title, he’ll perform the same material in a headlining gig at BST Hyde Park in London this summer.) At Friday’s sold-out debut performance, Jackman seemed positively giddy to be back on stage. He opened the roughly 105-minute-show on his guitar with a Neil Diamond ditty, backed by a talented 20-plus piece band and four capable backup singers.

From the start, it was clear Jackman had both joie de vivre and the well-polished expertise of an experienced emcee—fitting, considering he’s hosted both the Tonys and the Oscars. But while Jackman was clearly thrilled to be back on stage, his show itself leaves something to be desired—especially for those, like me, who are not necessarily diehard fans of The Greatest Showman, Jackman’s 2017 blockbuster movie musical. By my count, Jackman performed at least five Greatest Showman songs in full, including “The Greatest Show,” “From Now On,” and “The Other Side”—each number cornier than the last. Clearly, the film and its composers, EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, are close to Jackman’s heart; he even took to the piano to perform a well-intentioned but musically clunky cover of “You Will Be Found” from their Tony-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen.

While at times it felt like a Pasek and Paul greatest hits concert, Jackman’s repertoire did extend beyond the duo. He delivered an almost-word perfect of “Trouble” from The Music Man and a medley of Peter Allen songs, a sweet tribute to his Tony-winning performance as the closeted Aussie songwriter in The Boy from Oz. Jackman’s singing voice is almost Patti Luponian in style, with a foghorn timbre that’s both unique and ripe for parody. Sure, his incredibly wide vibrato can sometimes careen off key—especially when he’s also engaging in lightweight choreo. But when he’s on, as he mostly was on Friday night, Jackman’s voice is powerful and unmistakable.

This was clearest when Jackman covered two songs from Les Miserables, the beloved Broadway musical whose 2013 film adaptation brought Jackman his only Oscar nomination for his turn as Jean Valjean. After telling an endearing story about how he sang “Stars” for his first professional audition—and cracked on the last note—Jackman proceeded to blow his Les Miz co-star Russell Crowe out of the water (to be fair, a relatively basic task) with his grounded, gorgeously still performance of Inspector Javert’s anthem. He then raised the bar, holding back tears as he sang Valjean’s epic “What Have I Done”—delivering a vocally impressive performance performed with movie-star specificity that fittingly received the night’s longest applause break.

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Sadly, a concert full of ballads from Les Miz may not have been enough for the show’s 5,000-odd attendees—mostly middle-aged women and a surprisingly enormous smattering of Marvel fans who, according to one audience cheer, had no idea before Friday that Jackman could even sing. Jackman came prepared for this, and peppered in plenty of Marvel fan service as well. There were copious references to the years he spent playing Wolverine, with the 56-year-old Jackman even performing his own version of Deadpool’s viral opening credit dance—an athletic jump rope number to N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye” that could have doubled as the choreography to “Whipped Into Shape” from Legally Blonde the Musical.

The most unexpected Marvel moment came when Deadpool himself, Ryan Reynolds, popped out of the crowd to run an AMA, or rather an AHA (Ask Hugh Anything) with the audience. Reynolds playfully ribbed his co-star and longtime friend: “He used to be a movie star… and now all the singing and stuff,” he said with a wince, getting a large laugh. Jokes aside, Reynolds made it clear that he had nothing but love for Jackman. “​​I love this man. I care about this man. He’s genuinely the best human being I know, and I have four children,” he said.