Becoming Alexander Hamilton in stage phenomenon

It offers the story of America’s Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who became George Washington’s right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and helped shape the very foundations of the America we know today.

But the point is that this is the story of America then told by America now, with a score which blends hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B and Broadway.

The role of Hamilton himself is a huge one – so maybe it's hardly surprising that it was a four or five-month process to secure it for Marley Fenton, who graduated only two years ago.

“I expressed interest to my agent early on and said if there was ever a show that I wanted to be in, this was it. I just think it's the dynamic of the show and the integrity of the casting and I just love the music. I think it's just so cool to take a story that a lot of people maybe would not know and maybe would not think that they would be interested in but to tell it in such a modern and contemporary way that it is so easy to understand. It has got some sort of magic to it that takes you by surprise and takes you on a ride and never lets you go for the three hours.

“It was always something that I saw myself doing. I saw it in London around 2019 and I just knew that it was something that I wanted to be in. When the audition came through it was over the course of about four or five months and I did around six different rounds which was crazy. I had a few in London and a few nearer to where I was and also zoom calls with the American team. I think the reason that they wanted to do the zooms was to see how I would take direction from the horse’s mouth from the people that created it. There's a lot of stuff about the beats and the rhythms that was very specific and it was so useful to know exactly what they wanted directly before even getting it.”

As for the sheer scale of the role, Marley sees it as being about breaking it down during the course of the evening: “Hamilton says a lot of things about being young, scrappy and hungry at the start, in one of the biggest songs in the show and I think that's a big part of the journey for him. He has this hunger and this ability to do the sorts of things that he needs to do and he gets everyone on board with what he is saying. He needs George Washington early on to navigate his way through to becoming a man and to understanding the importance of America at the time. And then in Act II, being on the younger side of people that have played Hamilton, for me it's about understanding the gravity of having children and having the big responsibility of being in the first American government. It is taking that thing of young, scrappy and hungry from Act I and turning it into the responsibility that he has in the second act. In the second act he knows how he has got there and he knows what he wants and he does not take views from anybody else. He takes his own words as gospel which is a very interesting part of the dynamic because there are a lot more voices now and different people talking about the government. There are a lot of different opinions.”

There can't be many more demanding roles to tackle in musical theatre: “I think you've just got to pace yourself throughout the rehearsals. I see the show in four sections. I think it would be very easy just to play it in a blanket way and just go through because the writing is so amazing and the direction so amazing. It would be easy to just sit in there but I think what I need to do is concentrate on the different sections and the fact that he goes from 19 to 47 years old. You have to understand each section of the show and you have to break it down. I have minimal time off stage but in the time that I do have off stage, I'm thinking about where I am in the story and about how I go forward with the next bit. But it is also very technical. You have to do a lot of warm-ups. You can't just go straight into it and you really do have to look after yourself.

“When you're on tour it's important to keep yourself in routine and to keep yourself in check. I tend to listen to a lot of hip hop music as well anyway and keep myself fit and go to the gym. It's about keeping it alive and keeping the words in your mind and having a lot of tea and ginger & lemon and steaming! It's not very rock 'n' roll!”