Lin-Manuel Miranda is a hit on stage and off in Brisbane

He denigrated Vegemite but Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda spent the weekend at a moveable love-in on stage and off in Brisbane.

Regrets? Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the hit musical Hamilton, had only one really on his whirlwind trip to Brisbane.

“I didn’t get to cuddle a koala,” he told The Courier-Mail during an exclusive chat Sunday afternoon.

“But my mother is doing that right now.” It won him extra plaudits that he brought his mum, Dr Luz Towns-Miranda (a clinical psychologist) with him.

“She’s always up for a bit of adventure,” Miranda said.

His mum was in the audience Saturday night when he saw the Australian production of Hamilton live for the first time and made a brief impassioned speech thanking everyone after the show. And his mum was there again Sunday morning when around 2000 adoring fans packed the Lyric Theatre at QPAC for a Q and A session with ABC TV’s Leigh Sales.

Lin Manuel-Miranda meeting the Australian cast of Hamilton at QPAC in Brisbane.

Miranda answered questions from members of the audience, some of whom had flown in from as far afield as Perth after winning a free ticket in a lottery held to give fans a close up and personal experience with their idol, the man who wrote the unusual hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s founding fathers and the country’s first treasurer. He also set the gold standard as the original star on Broadway.

Around 30,000 fans bid for the tickets and after Sunday’s Q and A they gathered in their hundreds at QPAC’s Stage Door hoping to get a glimpse of Miranda.

He had arrived early Saturday, posting on Instagram vision from Brisbane’s Inner City Bypass en route to his South Bank hotel.

Lin-Manuel Miranda played the lead role of Alexander Hamilton for a year on Broadway.

He also posted an image of a jar of vegemite to show he knew a thing or two about Australia but later quipped that all the advice he’s had about Vegemite suggests it’s virtually inedible.

“People tell me you have to eat it on bread with lots of butter or with cheese,” Miranda said. “Which means you have to disguise the taste.”

When asked why it took so long for him to come to Australia to see his show, which has been playing for a couple of years in Sydney and Melbourne first, he replied: “I came as soon as I could”.

Lin-Manuel Miranda makes a passionate point during his press conference in Brisbane. (Photo by Jono Searle/Getty Images)

“I mean quarantine and other restrictions made it impossible during the pandemic,” he said. “But I made a promise that I would come particularly because Australia was the only place in the world where the show was playing at one stage during that pandemic.”

He met with the Australian cast while here and Jason Arrow, who plays Alexander Hamilton in the Australian production (the role that Miranda played first on Broadway, joined him on stage Sunday morning and Miranda looked at him and declared : “You’re so good!” to roars of approval from the audience.

At a press call later Miranda was asked if the Brisbane visit was just an excuse to visit the studios where Bluey is made. Miranda is an avowed fan of Bluey, a show which he says helped he and his wife and kids get through lockdown.

He even plays a horse called Major Tom briefly in series three.

“I have like two lines,” he said. “But the fact that my visit here happens to be to Bluey’s hometown is pure kismet.”

Hamilton is on until April 23 in the Lyric Theatre at QPAC and then tours to New Zealand