REVIEW: Hamilton at Mayflower Theatre

Mayflower Theatre is ‘The Room Where It Happens’ as the global phenomenon, ‘Hamilton’ has finally docked in Southampton. This is a musical that needs no introduction. If you were to ask anybody what they think is the most popular musical in the world at the moment - I’d like to think that 90% of time, ‘Hamilton’ is the name on the end of most peoples tongues. This musical has won basically every award it could possibly be eligible for and its clear to see why. The soundtrack (which is the whole musical), is pure perfection. It has a bit of everything and satisfies everybody. As for the production as a whole, it literally is a spectacle to see. One of the most impressive things you will ever see on a stage. Lin-Manuel Miranda is an extremely clever man, and through this musical he has changed musical theatre history forever.

If you’re unsure what ‘Hamilton’ is all about, it’s basically a big history lesson on the foundations of America during the American Revolution, particularly their founding fathers - and the story of ‘Alexander Hamilton’, the forgotten founding father. It may be a history lesson, but it’s the best history lesson you’ll ever have! This is a musical adaptation of a 2004 biography called ‘Alexander Hamilton’, adapted by the incredibly talented Lin-Manuel Miranda. He tells the story through song-and-rap, and when watching you will quickly see the importance of movement in the musical. Since starting off-broadway in 2015, ‘Hamilton’ became an overnight sensation with its West-End debut coming quickly in 2017. The soundtrack alone has won more awards than most musicals get nominated for, let alone the awards for the musical as a whole. You may have also seen ‘Hamilton’ as the recorded pro-shot for Disney, which brought in so many new theatre consumers. I mentioned earlier that this musical has changed musical theatre history forever, and not only has it brought new people into theatres, its got a younger audience interested in the arts - a real rejuvenation project. Miranda also used ‘Hamilton’, a political story, as a big political stand by casting non-white actors as the majority of the main cast. Miranda is quoted as describing ‘Hamilton’ as, “America then, told by America now”.

When you talk about historic cast members, ‘Hamilton’ is a musical that has had the best of the best. I can happily say that this touring cast can easily join the ever growing list of theatre royalty. Any role in ‘Hamilton’ has quickly become a dream role for an actor, and all of these roles are so physically demanding its incredible to watch. Playing ‘Alexander Hamilton’ is Marley Fenton. He was just outstanding. His voice was immaculate, and the acting within the rap was perfection. When a soundtrack is as famous as this one is, you get very used to the ‘Original Broadway Cast Recording’ and hearing something else can sometimes feel a bit off. That was not the case in this instance at all. ‘Aaron Burr’ was played by the incredible Billy Nevers. The whole cast were so impressive but I think Billy’s performance was the best of them all. I know the show is called ‘Hamilton’, but as far as I’m concerned ‘Burr’ was the real star of tonight. ‘Wait For It’ was perfect. No notes! ‘Burr’ is like the narrator of the story, so to see his connections with the other characters on stage but also with us as the audience was fantastic.

Roshani Abbey as ‘Eliza Hamilton’ had the audience wrapped around her every emotion. KM Drew Boateng (‘Hercules Mulligan/James Madison’), Ashley J. Daniels (‘Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson’), and Shak Mancel James (‘John Laurens/Philip Hamilton’) - were the perfect trio. Dual playing characters is such a difficult thing to do, but these guys all smashed it. Being able to easily differentiate between the characters they are playing is where the difficulty lies, but again not for these guys. Chasity Crisp as ‘Angelica Schyler’ and Naomi Katiyo as ‘Peggy Schyler/Maria Reynolds’ were a great sister duo pair as well. Chasity is actually returning to reprise her role after previously playing ‘Angelica’ in the first translated performance of ‘Hamilton’ back in Germany in 2022! Akmed Junior Khemalai as ‘George Washington’ gave one of the best vocal performances I have seen in a long time. ‘One Last Time’ was chilling. I’ll speak a little bit later about the opt-ups used, but all I’ll say for now is WOW! Louis Maskell as ‘King George’ brought such a refreshing and comedic take to the role. This is a role that has a lot of free rein so it’s always interesting to see how each different actor will portray him, and Louis did not disappoint. The cast as a whole left all of their energy out on that stage, and I actually feel privileged to have seen such a talented group of actors all together at the same time.

When it comes to set, we again are probably looking at one of the most recognisable musical theatre sets to date. At face value it may not look like much but it is so intricate and dynamic that it just adds another edge to this show. A big part of the set is the use of the two way turntable or lazy Susan much like in ‘Les Mis'. The way in which they utilise this to move characters/set around is incredible. I mentioned earlier about the importance of movement in the show, and this is what I mean. The set has so many moving pieces that require the cast to be in the perfect spot otherwise something could go seriously wrong. There are also no black outs, so scene changes are seamless between songs with cast using movement as a way of progressing the story. I also need to mention the lighting because this again was incredibly intricate. There was so much going on most of the time that lighting the key elements would’ve been incredibly challenging. But ‘Hamilton’ smashed it once again. The use of colour and movement along with the turntable was incredibly effective, almost blocking out certain sections of the stage. I feel as if the best way to actually describe the overall design is just to see it for yourself. I will note, that sitting higher up may be the move for ‘Hamilton’ just so you don’t miss those details from the movement and alignment. I still can’t get over how the cast knew exactly where they needed to be at every singular moment. Fantastic!

Now music is the main event of this show. I’ve already touched on the enormity of the soundtrack not only in the musical theatre world, but also in general. But I didn’t really touch one how ‘Hamilton’ is one big, never-ending song. The whole show is told through song (again much like ‘Les Mis’), but the mix in genres of music keeps audience engagement extremely high. You can tell that there is obviously a lot of inspiration taken from hip-hop, R&B, and pop music; but there is also a lot soul and classic musical theatre in there as well. Its clever the way that Lin-Manuel Miranda has weaved lyrics into multiple songs almost like certain lyrics are the anthems to certain characters. It’s also incredible that he has weaved actual historical pieces of writing into these songs, that if you didn’t know any better, would just think came straight from his brain.

I always mention how much a live band/orchestra adds to a show, and the energy that the ‘Hamilton’ orchestra adds is to die for. Headed by ‘Conductor/Musical Director’, Zach Flis, just hearing some of these songs live is worth while enough. I did mention the term ‘opt-up’ earlier, and if you don’t know what this is, it is basically the option that an actor takes in a song to sing the harder and more vocally challenging part, rather than the melody or line that you may know from the soundtrack. I think that the majority of the cast that had the option to opt-up did. In particular I’m talking about Billy Nevers, Chasity Crisp, and Aimed Junior Khemalai. Genuinely breathtaking!

To sum up, I think that this was probably one of the easiest reviews I’ve ever had to write. I always look for some sort of balance in my reviews, to talk about praise, and then bits that maybe didn’t seem quite right or bits that needed working on. I can’t think of anything to write here. Whether musical theatre is your thing or not, I can promise you that there’s a little part of ‘Hamilton’ that definitely will be your thing. It’s the perfect fusion of song, dance, and acting to the point where it doesn’t even feel like you’re watching a show. You may have seen the recorded version of ‘Hamilton’ with the original cast, but nothing will beat seeing this show performed live. I genuinely have no idea how you could ‘Say No To This’. This touring cast are also up there with one of the best casts I’ve potentially seen, ever. I remember hearing somebody in the interval say that it’s the first show they’ve seen where a touring cast feels stronger than any resident cast they’ve previously seen in a show. That’s just ‘Hamilton’ in a nutshell.

‘Hamilton’ is at Mayflower Theatre for an astonishing 6 weeks until the 26th of April, so there’s really no reason you should be missing out on tickets if you’re local. If for some reason you ‘throw away your shot’ to see ‘Hamilton’ in Southampton, make sure you catch this cast on the rest of their UK Tour. I wish all of the cast, crew, and company the best of luck going forwards - and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if we see this lot pick up a whole lot of awards along their travels. I promise you, once you see it once, ‘You’ll Be Back’. I’ve already got my next trip planned!