This year the Magnificent Bastards have given the shit-faced treatment to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and, opening tonight (21 June 2019), Hamlet onstage. And here are a few more they’ve done onscreen. Enjoy this hysterical Shit-faced series – and then get booking the drunken thespians live at Leicester Square Theatre.
The Great Dane… the Shit-faced way
A favourite at Leicester Square Theatre for the past four years, Magnificent Bastard Productions are now hamming up Hamlet for a limited run from 19 June to 14 September 2019, with a press night this Friday 21 June.
Think you know Hamlet? The story of a whiny lad who goes a bit loopy and does some stabbings, featuring foul language, outrageous behaviour, terrible singing, rapidly expelled bodily fluids and dangerous swordplay, Shakespeare has long been considered ‘cultural’. Instead, think of it like Game of Thrones with fewer boobs (probably).
At Leicester Square Theatre, Shit-faced Shakespeare: Hamlet stars David Ellis, Natalie Boakye, Madeleine Schofield, Christopher Lane, Richard Hughes, Beth-Louise Priestley, Matt Seager, Saul Marron and Stacey Norris, who also directs and produces. The production has costumes by Lorna Jean Connell and lighting, sound and fight choreography by Lewis Ironside.
How does a Shit-faced show work?
Every night one carefully selected member of the cast of professionally trained, Shakespearean actors is tasked with drinking for a full four hours prior to show time. The remainder of the sober cast are tasked with wrangling the drunken hero through a 70-minute adapted script, trying their level best to keep the show ‘on the rails’ while incorporating into the world of the play whatever drunken shenanigans are thrown at them. With the original text reduced to the primest theatrical cuts and no time to spare, every night is a high-energy race to the finish through an ever-changing series of drunken detours.
Macbeth
Romeo & Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Tempest
Richard III
