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The best musical cast recordings of all time, from Hamilton to Les Miserables

Theatres across the West End and Broadway have closed their doors in a bid to combat the coronavirus pandemic .

Fortunately, the sounds of our favourite stage shows have been captured for posterity on a number of brilliant cast recordings, so the music doesn't have to stop.

If you're missing visiting the theatre, we've gathered some of the best cast recordings of musicals from throughout West End and Broadway history to keep you smiling.

Hamilton (Original Broadway, 2015)

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As far as entire albums go, there isn’t a foot put wrong in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s score. Often with soundtracks, there’s that one song you skip through (don’t judge, everybody does it), but with Hamilton, nothing falls short. The lyrics are perfect and, with Leslie Odom Jr, Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson, Phillipa Soo and Jonathan Groff on this recording, the performers are unbeatable. It’s catchy to the point of taking up residence in your brain for days and educational enough that you’d be able to teach a GCSE class on American history by the time you’ve finished. If you listen from beginning (Alexander Hamilton) to end (Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story), you’ve basically seen the whole musical as it’s almost entirely sung-through - lucky for those who haven’t managed to see it on the stage yet.

The Sound of Music (Film soundtrack, 1965)

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It’s actually the film cast recording that makes this soundtrack so brilliant. While the original Broadway cast recording spent 16 weeks at the top of the US album charts in 1960, there’s no denying that Julie Andrews is what makes this great. The film soundtrack spent a whopping 70 weeks at number one in the UK album charts. You can almost see her striding about with her guitar case in I Have Confidence or the nuns arguing over what to do with her in Maria. No surprises then that the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic has sold more than 20 million copies and remains one of the most successful soundtrack albums in history.

Matilda (Original RSC, 2011)

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This is the only proof needed that Tim Minchin is as much of a genius as Matilda. His sharp comedic voice can be heard in all the lyrics throughout. It opens with the lines “my mummy says I’m a miracle”, which provides the perfect backdrop for Matilda’s birth and early life as an unwanted daughter. But the highlight is When I Grow Up, where the children sing about all the things they’ll be able to do when they’re adults: get up at sunrise to watch cartoons, eat sweets on the way to work and be brave enough to fight the monsters under the bed. It’s surprisingly moving as well. “Just because I find myself in this story doesn't mean that everything is written for me. If I think the ending is fixed already I might as well be saying I think that it's okay” - very wise words from these kids.

Les Miserables (Original London, 1985)

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Absolutely not the film soundtrack. Pretend that doesn’t exist. Les Mis is unsurprisingly one of the most popular musicals of all time, showing non-stop in London for more than 30 years. We all know someone who can sing this from beginning to end without stopping. This, too, is sung through and intensely dramatic. There’s no excuse not to be brandishing rulers (do people still use these?) at your friend during Javert and Valjean’s Confrontation, or marching proudly down the street to Red and Black. And this recording has a fantastic cast, with Colm Wilkinson as Valjean, Patti LuPone as Fantine, Michael Ball as Marius and Roger Allam as Javert. Soz, Russell Crowe.

Anything Goes (London revival, 1989)

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Set onboard an ocean liner from New York to London, Anything Goes has sailors, gangsters, nightclub singers and a wealthy heiress. The combination of Cole Porter’s lyrics and score and a story by PG Wodehouse was always going to produce a masterpiece that would last through the years. The 1989 soundtrack sits perfectly in between the original recordings clipped vocals (which can grow tiresome, sorry about it) and the most recent Broadway album, which is just a little too modern. It’s Cole Porter, after all, so it needs to feel a little dated to be authentic. It was also the height of London’s Elaine Paige era, when it seemed a musical wasn’t worth its salt if she didn’t appear in it. In fact, she was the one who made this revival happen, and took it to her then partner, Tim Rice, to make sure she got the part.

Girl from the North Country (Original London, 2017)

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So far, very little beats the experience of seeing Girl from the North Country. Conor McPherson’s story about the Depression in America is adapted from the music of Bob Dylan. When marvellous Shirley Henderson sings Like a Rolling Stone, the only response is tears and “damn, she got pipes!”. There are equally brilliant performances from Arinzé Kene and Debbie Kurup. If you don’t already, you need to get to know Sheila Atim. Her rendition of Tight Connection to My Heart is better than Bob Dylan’s. Sacrilege, I hear you cry! But no, every single track is moving and, dare I say, better performed than Dylan himself. The fact that the songs in Girl from the North Country aren’t plot driven makes this a fantastic standalone album, something that even musical theatre fans could get on board with.

Phantom of the Opera (Original London, 1987)

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It’s impossible not to include Phantom on here. Both the original recording and the shorter highlights album released a year later went four times multi-platinum. Andrew Lloyd Webber originally gave the part of the Phantom to rock singer Steve Harley, but on realising that his voice wasn’t operatic enough, he decided to go with Michael Crawford instead. It’s lucky he did, because Crawford and Sarah Brightman make one of the most iconic musical theatre pairings we’ve seen. The title song sees Brightman hit an E6, the highest note in the show (it’s really, very high). Phantom has huge international appeal as well and soundtracks have been recorded in Austrian, Dutch, German, Japanese, Swedish, Korean, Hungarian, Polish and Russian, in case you’re interested.

Fiddler on the Roof (Original Broadway, 1964)

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Fiddler on the Roof was one of the musicals to start the trend of having extended runs, being the first Broadway production to break the 3,000 performance mark, and won Tony Awards for best musical and score. The original Broadway version starred Zero Mostel as patriarch Tevye (later usurped by Topol in the film), a village milkman who supports his wife and five daughters. Much of the show is a monologue of him speaking to god. The lyrics are genius, as demonstrated in Tevye’s If I Were A Rich Man (which many will know, even if they haven’t seen the musical) and Matchmaker, Matchmaker, where three of his daughters come to the realisation that having arranged marriages isn’t what they want.

West Side Story (Film soundtrack, 1959)

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West Side Story has been recorded and re-recorded many times and six of those have won Grammy Awards. The original cast recording unfortunately isn’t one of them, but the soundtrack from the film most definitely is. There’s a lot of dubbing going on: Marni Nixon sings Maria’s role instead of Natalie Wood, and Tony is sung by Jimmy Bryant, not Richard Beymer who acts in the film. The dream pairing of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim has given us some of the loveliest and most upsetting songs, as well as those that make everyone want to travel everywhere clicking their fingers.