Writer: Hadrian Conyngham
Director: Warren Rusher
Shakespeare’s plays are full of magic, mysterious beings like fairies, witches, sub-human creatures and supernatural occurrences, so the premise of Hadrian Conyngham’s intriguing Understudy No. 5 fits very nicely as a theatre janitor becomes possessed by a series of minor characters. Showing at the Old Red Lion Playhouse on the final day of the Camden Fringe Festival 2026 as part of the venue’s own SHAKEFEST sub-festival, Conyngham’s show sets itself apart with a scholarly understanding of Shakespeare’s writing that becomes the basis for the new life he gives to these overlooked characters.
Sweeping up in the dressing room, a janitor is transformed when he touches a series of props left behind from a range of Shakespeare plays and, through them, starts to imagine a far larger life for some of the less well-known characters. What role might Benvolio have played in the death of Juliet, does Cobweb ever stand still for more than a moment, can Feste ever recover his humour and what more philosophical insight might the Gravedigger offer to a willing audience?
The concept behind Understudy No. 5 is a strong but simple one, well executed in director Warren Rusher’s 50-minute production that introduces most of the different characters before returning to them and continuing their narrative in episodic chunks. It is just the right amount of time to explore what more could have been happening beneath the surface of the famous stories and behind the backs of the better-known protagonists, and Conyngham brings a deep understanding of the plays and the world of the theatre that makes each imagined strand feel credible.
Part of the reason for that is an academic knowledge not just of Shakespeare’s canon and characters but of his meter, of the structure of verse and prose used for different speakers and the consequences for the ways particular individuals and scenarios are performed. Conyngham then replicates each character’s specific vocal style in the expansion of their story, often referencing Shakespeare’s tricks and techniques such as the exhaustive speed of Cobweb, who in person and rhythm of speech can barely hold still, trapped in and unable to break a pattern created by their author. The ways in which Conyngham understands, plays with, mocks and turns Shakespeare’s writing back on itself are very pleasing – as the Gravedigger notes when his prose allows “a sentence to stretch its legs.”
There is also an interesting self-awareness that filters through the characterisation; Benvolio, for example, notes that Romeo is “some man more interesting than I” while the Gravedigger equally nods to the 400-years of performance history that places Hamlet, himself and Yorik in the same position night after night, helping to give the speakers greater agency over their stories and the ways they have been told. Feste works less well than the others, at present a melancholy and arthritic old man whose tale doesn’t quite offer the same insight as the others and might be too easily confused with the melancholy Jaques.
The one thing missing from Understudy No. 5 is perhaps a connected understanding of why these specific characters and not others: no poorly served women, no ghosts, no thrown away soldiers or lost children, so some sense of the collective impact of possession on the Janitor might also add to the meaning. But in asking “who is the architect of this evening,” Shakespeare must hand his crown to Conyngham.
Reviewed on 30 August 2026
Camden Fringe 2026 runs until 30 August
