Sh!tfaced Shakespeare Staggers to London
A hot ticket for a West End theatre. A cocktail or two before curtain up. Maybe a light supper at the end of the performance.
Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekov. This sounds like a splendidly sophisticated night out.
But NOT if you book seats at the Leicester Square Theatre for Romeo and Juliet, that tragic love story.
Or, to give it it’s proper/improper title: Sh!t-faced Shakespeare.
You don’t have to be pissed to enjoy this – but it will help!
Chances are you won’t be half as drunk as the one member of the cast who is tasked in the four hours before the show starts to drink lots. And I mean lots.
Each night one of the half dozen thespians is chosen to drink on the job. On our night it was the turn of Juliet (Jessica Brindle) who had already necked an IPA and half a bottle of vodka, and was expected to down even more during the next 110 minutes for maximum laughs.
The rest of the word-perfect cast have to navigate their way through her slurring, slurping, giggling and falling about to deliver their own lines without corpsing at her inebriated antics. Poor Romeo (Richard Hughes) loses his wig in the general mayhem.
A sparkly sequinned compere (Lucy Farrrar) welcomes the 350-strong audience, fortified with drinks from the TWO bars in the thankfully air conditioned auditorium, to participate with gongs and horns to encourage more alcoholic intake by Juliet . As if she wasn’t tipsy enough.
When she delivers that famous line: ‘Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’ in the balcony scene she has a pint glass in hand. ‘I’m enjoying this. Go with it….It’s night but it’s bloody hot up here, sweltering,’ she gasps, wild-eyed and hyper-ventilating.
The bard could be spinning in his grave at this knock-about panto style re-telling of the young star-crossed lovers. You won’t see this at the National Theatre or Stratford as it’s much more suitable for Fringe audiences.
But at least the cast look the Elizabethan part in their ruffs, feathered hats, doublet and hose. Three of them heroically take on two parts apiece: Stacey Norris as Benvolia and Nurse; Christopher Lane as Mercutio and Friar; and John Mitton as Tybalt and Capulet.
Sh!t-faced Shakespeare has been seen by 250,000 people so far, and wowing some critics (this Romeo and Juliet was awarded four stars by Time Out – ‘It’s what Will would have wanted,’ while the Sunday Times reckoned: ‘It’s theatre for people who hate theatre.’
Zero actors have died.
Hopefully their contracts give them free liver tests and an introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Enjoy responsibly!
