Show reviewed: 26/02/26

Show rating: the only thing faked was the bard, an 4.5 stars.

Patrick Hercamp is something of the reason why I became an Adelaide Fringe Festival review when I encountered him through being “pocket friended” me on facebooking by his companion in the chaos, Ryan Adam Welles, of his Sound and Fury days. I first saw Fakespeare in one its first incarnations as Half Hour Hamlet and it was a good 4 star show even then. Patrick has always been a genuinely talent performer and beloved by Adelaide audiences over the years he has been part of our arts community. He has embraced and loved us back when we stood by him in hard times, but that is Pat’s story to tell.

Fakespeare is an excellent and accessible introduction to Shakespeare’s tragedies offering the audiences a choice of Hamlet or Macbeth, comedically performed solo in the open aired theatre of the Squeaker at Gluttony by Hercamp. I hate the term edu-tainment but this is exactly the sort of Fringe show that should be added to high school programming to encourage students to get their around heads the great modern English authors like Shakespeare.

Knowing Shakespeare has added greatly to my life as a person who loves to read but also one who is often at odds with me struggling to understanding the human condition as neuro spice girl. Yet through learning from the astute and timeless observations of the Bard himself, I sometimes get it. This is why Shakespeare’s storytelling is still relevant and delivered in a variety of ways of film, television series and books reimagining these interrogations of the Bard’s pro-humane philosophy.

Pat is a fun guy, has delightfully charisma of a dervish when treading the boards and definitely engaged to audience to participate in the whirl wind process of delivering a tragedy in less than an hour. I think my favourite part is when he takes the final scene of Hamlet’s death laying in Horatio’s arms and asks about the futility of the death & destruction as being necessary. Was it? Go see the show and you decide why this production is relevant on the age of the Kardashians.