Shamilton – The Leadmill, Sheffield

Produced by Baby Wants Candy

Director: Albert Samuels

Following a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, improv group Baby Wants Candy are hitting the road with their first ever UK tour.Shamilton is a parody improvised musical whereby the small cast take recommendations from the audience on key characters and facts about the protagonist to include and perform a musical in the style of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.

The Leadmill in Sheffield played host to the opening (and closing!) night ofCaptain Jack Sparrow the Musical. Yes, no one is off cards – dead, alive or fictional – and the people of Sheffield democratically (with loud cheers) votedPirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Jack Sparrow to be the protagonist for this evening’s improvised hip hop musical.

But first, the cast perform a couple of improv games to warm both themselves and the audience up. They all demonstrate their impressive freestyle rap skills, and Derek Demkowicz and Raquel Palmas compere their respective sections excellently, building very strong rapport with the audience within seconds.

Onto the main event, this evening was brilliant fun! For the most part it was hilarious, but the cast managed to include aspects of political commentary and moments of emotion and heart in the show as well. Musical Director and keyboard player Adrien Pellerin and drummer Ali Hutchinson are both very talented musicians, being able to improvise alongside the cast. They sound very good, and despite there only being two instrumentalists onstage the sound always feel full and energetic.

Derek Demkowicz assumed the leading role of Captain Jack Sparrow, adopting quite a good (if slightly comedic at times) British accent for someone who hails for Chicago. Whilst he becomes American he raps and sings, he delivers some outstanding vocals throughout the show. Lily Ludwig played love interest Angelica. She delivers some beautiful vocal moments and the duet (loosely inspired by Helpless) between her and Raquel Palmas who, at this moment, played Angelica’s parent was actually a rather moving moment.

Raquel Palmas plays a range of roles including parents of both Angelica and Jack Sparrow, as well as Captain Hook (don’t ask, the audience suggested he was included…) and is in equal parts of funny and emotive, building tremendous rapport with her fellow castmates. British performer Will Naameh is wet-yourself-funny consistently in his variety of weird and wonderful roles, whilst also being a strong rapper with great diction. He never misses a moment to make the audience laugh and attempt to make his fellow cast members corpse. Tai Campbell completes this evening’s cast who builds a nice rapport with Demkowicz, Campbell playing the role of Captain Blackbeard. The addition of the plot point whereby Blackbeard started as a racist nickname but he took the name and claimed it for himself was a great inclusion.

Shamiltonis a wonderful, feel good evening out. Whilst it may not be quite as impressive as some other improv musical shows out there (such as Showstopper) given all the music is roughly of the same genre, the combination of improv acting and freestyle rap gives this show something a little different to enjoy.

Reviewed on 29th August 2024. Touring the UK until 15th September 2024.