Writer: William Shakespeare
“John, just SAY THE F**KING LINES!”
What kind of drunk are you? The talkative kind, the weepy kind, the eager to fight a tree kind? Well, the members of Sh!t-faced Shakespeare are apparently the go on stage in front of hundreds of people and try to remember lines written by one of the most linguistically renowned playwrights of the English Renaissance kind.
The premise is simple – six actors, one compere and one technician, walk into a theatre and one of the actors proceeds to get riotously wasted. In tonight’s case, a bottle of Becks, two IPAs and two thirds of a bottle of Disaronno wasted. In that state they then perform a cut down version of one of the Bard’s works. This tour it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Not the easiest when you’re stone cold sober, an absolute feast of subject matter if you’re plastered. To save everyone’s livers, the liquored-up actor is rotated every night – a good thing too as there are three more chances throughout the show for audience members to gift said actor extra drinks, just in case they are in danger of sobering up.
It is initially hard to tell who is trolleyed, as the first scene descends into a cavalcade of fart jokes due to microphone feedback (it’s not technician James Murfitt’s fault – he’s hungover after being the drunk actor in last night’s show!). Compere Beth-Louise Priestley ably guides the chaos and in doing so it becomes very clear that tonight’s victim is John Mitton, our Demetrius. Here is normally where a review would summarise the show, but honestly going to a Sh!t-faced production the plot becomes largely irrelevant. Basically, four lovers Demetrius, Lysander (Eugene Evans), Hermia (Stephanie Simpson) and Helena (Natalie Boakye) are in the woods and fall prey to Fairy King Oberon (Stacey Norris) and his sidekick Puck (Charlie Keable), who are determined to play a prank on Fairy Queen Titania (Richard the lucky audience member). A lot of drinks later everyone is in love with the wrong person, they’ve briefly double cast into the Rude Mechanicals and someone is kissing ass. Sorry, kissing an ass.
Obviously, the main focus is going to be on Mitton as the inebriated party member, and he does not disappoint. There’s always a slight suspicion at these kinds of shows that maybe the actor isn’t as drunk as they are portraying. Well, Mitton is definitely, completely, unaccountably ratted. He has the audience in peals of side-splitting laughter as he gradually loses the ability to stand up, contemplates the ethics of Helena’s inability to take no for an answer or her alarming ease at accepting her new husband only loves her because of an enchantment, and sadly informs everyone of his neurodivergence and injured shoulder (he fell through the backdrop while changing costumes). Through intoxicated tangents given with a devilish laugh he makes Priestly’s job of corralling the performance a total nightmare, running twenty minutes over in the end, and goodness, don’t we all love him for it? Seeing Priestley break is almost as good as seeing Mitton try to act through the booze cloud. Credit to the guy though, he absolutely nails the Dream Sequence Ballet, and half of Lysander’s lines too.
Of course, the rest of the cast are on fine form as well. Evans and Simpson do an excellent job as straight men pulling scenes back to focus; Norris and Keable are the perfect double act, pushing the limits and winding up their sloshed companion; and Boakye has ensured that the audience will never look at a spaniel in quite the same way again…
Sh!t-faced Shakespeare is always a riotous night out, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream has to be one of their most enjoyable productions so far. It’s easy to forget that there is a lot of talent on show while laughing at the actor so blind drunk that they can’t quite remember why they are even here, but the RSC could never do what these folks do. You may walk out unsure what the real plot is, but you’ll have had one of the most entertaining nights of your life.
Reviewed on 16 October 2024
