Theatre Review: Sh!t Faced Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

Make Shakespeare Lowbrow Again!⁰ That's a rallying cry I can get behind. Willy wrote for the groundlings - plenty of sex and violence, interspersed with fart jokes and casual xenophobia. When your audience are drunk and violent, you really need to bring your best rhyming couplets.

Shitfaced Shakespeare knows its West End audience have had a few refreshments before the show. Their twist is - so has one of the cast members.

Take six classically trained thesps, get one of them pissed, proceed with the show.

It so nearly works.

Having a chaos-monkey dart around the stage, forgetting his soliloquies, making rude jokes, and being a bit of a prat is funny. But it is obviously a lot funnier for him than it is for his castmates. We've all had to put up with a drunk wanting to be the centre of attention. It's a laugh… for a bit, and then gets tiresome. Let it be so with this.

It does bring out rare moments of unexpected beauty. When Claudio is told Hero is dead, he howls in pain. It's the sort of raw emotion that can only be conjured up by the terminally bladdered. It is heart-wrenching. Similarly, on seeing Hero unmasked at their wedding, he drunkenly belches "I fookin' love you! You're so fit!" Which is probably what the character feels, but is usually left to subtext.

The play itself its very well done. The script has been stripped back (no Dogberry 🫡) and the 90ish minutes are played directly for laughs. The cast give it their all and happily improvise around their inebriated friend and the audiences whistles & cheers.

In many ways, this would have been better as "audience participation Shakespeare". They do engage with the audience and even pull one up on stage (never sit in the front row, darling!) - but it feels like they could have made more of the pantomime aspect.

There's always a nagging doubt about how drunk the actor is. They're obviously all talented improvisers, but there's on knowing how much of the foolishness is rehearsed or expected. Does that ruin the magic? Well, it depends of how cynical you are. Best to have a pint or three at the bar beforehand.

If you can get cheap tickets or want a works-night-out, this is a tawdry and bawdy way to spend the evening.