I am a Shakespeare lover and was over the moon to be able to
see a comedic take on The Bard. Doing Shakespeare - set in the Northern town with
a rather unusual insalubrious name (not one I think I can repeat here) we meet
a group of wannabe thespians rehearsing for the town play. For the first time
in a very long time, I laughed and laughed. Right from the beginning I
chuckled, innuendoes flying, Shakespeare quotes out of context, actors hamming
it up. What a great time. As it was the first night and press viewing, we were
a sparse audience in one of my favourite venues. Bridewell Theatre in the City
of London is a gem of a place, intimate and yet situated in a very busy part of
the business district. It has a rather quaint underground bar – so pre-theatre
drinks was a must.
This group of six actors making up the Northern Comedy
Theatre were hilarious, all of them with a notable repertoire of previous
performances. Written by David Spicer, famous for writing a plethora of scripts
including writing for Armstrong and Miller, had written several plays to be
performed online during lockdown. This same group of imaginary characters were
also written into five other ‘Doing…’ plays. Spicer has tweaked the script of Doing
Shakespeare to add in nuances related to the pandemic. It was clever, but this is
a bit of a dig at Shakespeare snobs (there were a few mentions of those well-known
Shakespeare haunts; The Globe and Stratford). This play reminds us that even
the small amateur dramatic associations like to speak the language of Will. The
first half reminded me of a school play, each actor bringing their own
individual character’s prejudices and irritations to the fore. The scene
depicts the difficulty that we have all experienced of misinterpreting
decisions made on zoom meetings and then watching as the chaos ensues. When all
six performers start their dialogues, we have the usual recognisable Shakespeare
plays, characters and speeches. It all becomes
a battle of egos and jostling to be the star performer, as projected by these
seemingly unsophisticated people. However, delve deeper and you will see that
although they may be ordinary people they do in fact share a love of the works
of the great man himself. We are doing Shakespeare…
The second half was the performance as planned for the
audience in the Northern town. “We are doing Shakespeare…” We were that
audience; we lived and breathed it. Our six thespians arrived on stage in their cheap
costumes because they are ‘Doing Shakespeare’. Still reminiscent of some kind
of cheap school production: I laughed out loud throughout the second half. I thoroughly
enjoyed it. The whole thing can only be described as a riot in all its forms!
What fun the actors must have had preparing and getting this together. I don’t
know how they remembered their cues because it was all so disjointed. But it
worked and it worked a treat. This show has made my whole week. I am sitting
here smiling to myself as I write this review. It runs until Saturday 13th
November. Catch it if you can. This show deserves to be played to packed
audiences to have an even funnier atmosphere.
Well done to the Northern Comedy Theatre’s six: Robert
Stuart-Hudson, Vicki Earle, Kathryn Chambers, Connor Simkins, Steven Arnold,
Farron Ronan – you were hysterical doing Shakespeare. Can’t wait to see you all
perform together again. Come back to Bridewell. I’ll be first in the queue.
Reviewer - Penny Curran
on - 3.11.21
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