Every year, there is a debate as to who/what has the claim to being the rightful heir to Shakespeare’s majesty canon. Who truly has the right to call themselves the holders of the spirit of The Bard? Will I use this review to claim that the tiny company of Sh!tfaced Shakespeare are the holders of that title? Maybe, maybe not – but they’ve certainly got a claim. We hold the bard’s work in such high regard, such prestige, tickets for the RSC or National Theatre run hundreds of dollars – you can get a performance the bard would certainly be proud of for far less at The Roundhouse every night this Fringe.

If you’ve never been to a Sh!tfaced show before, the premise is incredibly simple. 5 actors and an mc have spent years honing their craft as actors and learning the defining works of Shakespeare’s canon – and now they’re going to perform it for you, but not until one of them is BELLIGERENTLY DRUNK. This year, the production is A Midsummer Night Dream, the stage was set, and the dashing Lysander wandered onto the stage to perform a choreographed dance routine and almost promptly fell over.

If you know much about the plot of Midsummer Night’s Dream you will wonder how five actors could perform this show, and to that I say who cares? The company take the key plot points and then utilize a lot of incredibly daring improv to give you a show that derives the spirit of Shakespeare and his play whilst keeping those in the audience who could not care less about Shakespeare engaged from day dot. This includes pulling up a member of the audience to play Queen of the fairies Titania, and giving out a celebratory gong and party popper that when they were went off, Lysander was forced to take yet another drink.

As you can tell this is a very improvisational version of Midsummer, and a lot of the additional comedy comes from the antics of our drunken playmate. From initiating additional non-choreographed dancers to rolling forwards off of the stage into the audience (definitely scaring his mc/minder) to changing the ending of the play so that all of the pertinent characters actually partner off with a member of the same gender in an incredibly progressive retelling of the story, you can tell that this is as fun a thing to do for the actors as it was for the audience.

The number one tail for any comedy performance or any comedy performance of Shakespeare is how do the audience react – and this audience was in rapture. Due to issues outside of the company’s control and most likely on poor forward planning from the Roundhouse, the audience were left outside for 45 minutes before the projected show started but that did not stop them from loving this show.

I cannot recommend this enough to people who love Shakespeare but go in with a pinch of salt. I cannot recommend this enough to people who don’t love Shakespeare but take it with a pinch of maybe something a little harder than salt, just like the actors on stage.