Shamilton! The Improvised Hip-Hop Musical – George Square Studios

Dominic Corr

Aug 30

Created by Baby Wants Candy

Review by Annie Aslett

Rating: 5 out of 5.

The stage is set. A familiar-sounding-but-definitely-not-plagiarised drum beat plays. The performers are in Hamilton-style white shirts and beige leggings. But a simplistic Hamilton musical parody this is not. R.J. Williams asks the audience to suggest a famous person, historical figure or character that we would like to see an hour-long improvised show about. 'J-Lo!' 'Spock!' 'The Tiger King!' 'Jesus' donkey!' An interesting selection to say the least for this, is Shamilton's final performance at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe.

The final pick, chosen by an audience vote? Ingvar Kamprad. Your guess is as good as the casts'. Turns out he's the late founder of IKEA, and Williams wastes no time asking probing questions to the audience in an attempt to flesh out some details about this man, around whom this hour-long show will revolve. After establishing that his fictional rival would be US retail corporation, Walmart, he avoided paying taxes and was an early Nazi sympathiser, it is with understandable trepidation (not least around how the hell to pronounce the man's name) that our cast set about creating this show from scratch.

The show's first song comes the closest to Lin Manuel Miranda's original, with an introductory origins rap about Kamprad. This is our first taste of the cast's quick-thinking improv rap skills, which will leave you in slack-jawed amazement throughout, as you keep reminding yourself that the whole show, songs and all, is completely made up on the spot (so it's easy to forgive the occasional rhyming of a word with the same word).

The cast is accompanied on stage by live musicians, led by Adrien Pellerin, who are just as much part of the improv team as the rest of the cast (and are thoroughly included during this final show by cast member Katy Berry).

Berry plays our Swedish protagonist and brings side-splitting, off-the-wall mania to the role (RIP that chair) but also a ferocious and impressive vocal performance that would see her not out of place on a Broadway stage. She is joined by her mentor-turned-rival, Amish woodworker Mitch, played hysterically by Kiki Mikkelsen. The duo work together brilliantly, particularly during the fateful Crazy Chair Dance number, which sees Mikkelsen flex her impressive improv chops as she doesn't miss a beat when Berry launches into the spontaneous, dance-heavy number.

Joining Williams, Berry and Mikkelsen onstage are Adrian Frimpong, Raquel Palmas and Derek Demkowicz. Frimpong's stand-out role is that of Grandpa Walmart, commitedly limping around stage complaining about the decline of the good ol' 'Murican store. As the Walmart family begin to chant 'USA! USA!', Berry and Mikkelsen chime in with some scathing satire about the state of America today; Berry as an 8-year-old looking for the Walmart gun aisle, and Mikkelsen as a pregnant woman looking for the abortion aisle - another example of this cast's lightning-fast comic skills. Palmas and Demkowicz start out as Kamprad's encouraging Swedish (the accents are at least Swedish-adjacent) parents who join Berry in a song about Kamprad striking out on his own, during which Demkowicz surely wins the cleverest line of the show - "soon you'll have to fly and make a life that's DIY!"

A show that comes back to sell-out crowds at the Fringe year after year, you'll want to grab a ticket for every night of the run to see this ever-changing, endlessly impressive show.

Endlessly Impressive

Shamilton! The Improvised Hip-Hop Musical ran at the George Square Studios as a part of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Suitable for ages 14+
Running time - Sixty minutes without interval