Presented by A-List Entertainment
Reviewed 6 March 2017
Strap yourself in folks, this one is going to be a bumpy ride. In the best way possible.
Imagine if you can, all the intricacies and delicacies of perhaps the Bard’s most famous work. The famous soliloquies, the passionate brawls and romantic monologues, all brought to life with some of literature’s most lyrical and complex dialogue. Then imagine one of the titular characters has cracked into a slab of Heineken and decided that rather than die for his young love in Fair Verona, he’d rather become a stripper in Mantua…
Well, head on down to the Cornucopia tent in Gluttony, see Sh!t-faced Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet this Fringe season and that’s exactly what you’ll find.
Sh!t-faced Shakespeare is the internationally acclaimed performance company and stage act which has been winning fans the world over. This year, the show makes its first ever appearance in Australia as part of the Adelaide Fringe and it’s an absolute must see.
The concept is relatively simple: each night one of the six person cast is selected to load up with alcohol before the performance in order to shake things up while the rest of the crew sticks to the classic script as much as possible, making room for the debacles, stumbles and forgotten lines along the way. To ensure creative license for the artist and comic value for the audience, the selected performer (in this performance it was our Master Romeo) is also plied with drinks during the show to brilliant and hilarious ends.
In a mix of Royal Shakespeare Company and a university kegger, no two performances are ever truly alike – an enjoyable and refreshing take for those of us who have been reading and watching Shakespeare for many years.
The performance is a riot of laughs, however the cast also have some pretty serious acting chops as well, belting out line after line of rhyming couplets while still accommodating the antics of their less than sober colleague.
Make sure you grab tickets to this one, and if you can, book in for another night as well so that you can see what happens when one of the other cast members gets into the bar. I’ll be heading back next week for just this reason!
Note: First two rows will get wet and possibly involved in the action.
Reviewed by Jenna Woods
Twitter: @jennaswoods
Rating out of 5: 4.5/5
Venue: Cornucopia at Gluttony
Season: Until 18 March 2018
Duration: 60mins
Tickets: Full Price: $28.00 to $34.90, Concession/Group 6+: $29.90: $29.90, BankSA Customer: $26.92
Bookings: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/shit-faced-shakespeare-romeo-and-juliet-af2018
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