William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged)
This is street Shakespeare, attracting the boys in the hood as well as connoisseurs. A new addition to the anthology of work created by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, this play’s pretty damn great. But it only came about because three Americans in converse trainers, Joseph Maudsley, Matthew Pearson and James Percy, unexpectedly came across William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play with a cast of thousands under a Leicester car park next to a pile of bones.
Turns out this play’s running time is 100 hours long, so thank the almighty they saw fit to present us with the abridged 90 minute version. This hilarious script, a series of linked sketches, is really written by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. They have amalgamated some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and thrown together the characters into a topsy turvy world, with Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, The Duke of Gloucester, Richard III, the Weird Sisters, and of course Dromio and Juliet, all in there.
It starts when Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ariel from the Tempest challenge each other to see who is the most magical and powerful of them all. They use wit and magic to coerce unlikely Shakespearian characters to fall in love, to flee, some to question their sexuality, and all intermingled with some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches, augmenting them with witty wordplay including references to some of our most treasured establishments. You know, like Greggs.
But if it still seems a bit highbrow for you, did I mention the Disney characters? Watch out for Pinocchio and Eeyore the donkey ramping up the humour and unadulterated joy you’ll feel by the time the 90 minutes are up. There’s nothing fancy schmancy here, costume changes are simple and hilariously effective, and it wouldn’t be a great comedy show without some audience participation, so you know where not to sit if you don’t want to get picked.
