Who? The Hamilton Tour of UK and Ireland is produced by Jeffrey Seller and Cameron Mackintosh
What? Hamilton
Where? Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
When? 18 March – 26 April 2025
What the show is about? The show is about Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the US. It follows his life from his arrival to New York to his death. In the first part of the show you meet the main characters. Hamilton is an orphan from the Caribbean who goes to King’s College and there he meets 3 fellow revolutionaries, John Laurens, Marquis de Lafayette (Lafayette), and Hercules Mulligan. He also meets Aaron Burr, one of the most recent graduates from King’s College.
They join the revolution to fight off the British and once they have succeeded, they set about writing the constitution and leading the newly United States of America.
We also learn about Hamilton’s private life as he meets and marries his wife Eliza. They have 8 children together but in the musical they really only focus on one of them, Phillip.
What was really good about it? What I think was really good about the show was the amount of songs that there were because I quite like musicals, and at the time I watched it I didn’t know many of the songs but afterwards we got the CD so I learned them off of that. I know them quite well now….it might be slightly driving my mum crazy.
I liked how the stage was set up and the revolve worked really well, and rather than the actors having to walk around the stage, the revolve took them that way instead. The choreography for the performance was really quite clever, especially as there were most likely going to be about 5-30 people on stage at a time, they also used revolving bit on the stage skilfully when actors entered and left the stage. The whole thing was incredibly slick and seamless.
Also at some points at the start of the second act there are rap battles between Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State at the time) and Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of Treasury at the time) during cabinet meetings. The rap battles are really interesting, deciding first where they should put America’s main banks and the capital city and whether they should work together to demolish New York’s debt but Jefferson, from Virginia, doesn’t want his home state to be in debt as well as New York.
The second rap battle (or Cabinet Meeting) between Jefferson and Hamilton is about whether they should help France (who at war with England) or stay out of it. Jefferson wants to help France but Hamilton believes that America are just too fragile to keep fighting, and that they should stay out of it.
What could be better? The thing that could have been better was that, although I had loads of sweets, I didn’t get an ice cream during the interval.
What my Dad thinks? Hamilton is worth the hype. It’s just incredible. The music, the chorography, the lyrics, the storytelling, the acting and the emotion are all done perfectly.
I’d been a little concerned that the 2 hours 45 minutes would be a bit long for the kids (and me) but it flew by. It was worth watching the Broadway version on Disney+ beforehand because it meant the children were able to follow the plot better and were familiar with some of the songs. It also meant they were giddy with excitement whenever King George came onto stage.
Star Rating? 5 Stars
Find more of my theatre reviews and match reports on my blog page.





