Review: SH*T-FACED SHAKESPEARE: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, Leicester Square Theatre, April 26 2016

If it's not the pomp and circumstance of the RSC, I suspect The Bard himself might have enjoyed it, as his day job as an actor put him in the company of those who would take a drink from time to time. Although perhaps not as many as Saul Marron (Lysander), the "victim" on the night I saw the show (the cast take turns through the run to get boozed up before taking the stage).

And that's the gig really. We get a cut-down version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, concentrating on the lovers with Puck puckishly prancing about and a director intervening to avoid too much vodka splashing the front row and to keep the plot meandering forward. Though the show predates the recent growth in London's range of adult pantos and "The Play That Goes Wrong" and its successors, it has plenty of both in its look and feel.

The laughs come from three main sources. The rest of the cast play straightmen to our beer-swigging Athenian, so there's the jarring counterpoint of Helena and Hermia's beautiful language and some slurred improvisation from a character who can remember most of his lines most of the time, but often prefers his own. He gets laughs too from some broad physical comedy - pratfalls, minor injuries, inappropriate sleeping arrangements in the forest - and the ever-present danger that he might actually roll off the stage. There's room for plenty of bantz through the fourth wall too, which isn't even theoretical as it's never constructed in the first place.

Though the show will be different every night and comedy is oh so subjective, I felt my attention waning as the joke overstayed its welcome (even at a rushed 60 minutes). This is possibly due to the choice of play - the original is pretty funny without any help and Nick Bottom is often played as if a little pissed - and I would have enjoyed hearing more of Shakey's stuff. (Indeed Beth-Louise Priestly and Stacey Norris fighting and bitching as Helena and Hermia was the funniest five minutes of the 60!)

Perhaps the gag I enjoyed the most was coincidental - the physical resemblance between our drunk actor and Kenneth Branagh, recently playing a man similarly incapacitated by horse anaesthesia just up the road at The Garrick. Each could have covered for the other and few would have noticed from halfway back in the stalls!

Sh*t-faced Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream continues at the Leicester Square Theatre until 11 June.

To post a comment, you must register and login.