Shakespeare: But Just The Deaths – Shakespeare North Playhouse

The last time I saw Shakespeare performed by Cream Faced Loons, the company formed by Abey Bradbury in 2016, we sat wearing plastic ponchos as gallons of fake blood was thrown around during ‘Titus Andronicus’; the time before, the audience donned paper crowns and fought with wooden swords for ‘King John’. Now Bradbury brings her one woman show to Shakespeare North Playhouse with the intent of describing all the deaths (and gory bits) throughout the Bard’s canon in just under an hour. Spoiler alert – she succeeds – and does so in an accessible and humorous style that makes this show perfect family entertainment for a Saturday evening spent outdoors in the July sunshine.

The Edinburgh Fringe roots of this fast paced production are clearly visible as we are taken on a whirlwind tour through all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays and a grand total of 10,187 deaths, over 10,000 of which are dealt with swiftly thanks to one line in Henry V!  For the rest, we have themed sections around Assassins, Fake Deaths and Ghosts which invite audience participation from the younger members and are suffused with silliness and quick changes as we pass through each play at breakneck speed.

Inevitably in a show of this pace and with an audience that may not have an encyclopaedic understanding of Shakespeare, some elements work better than others. This evening, the cooking show featuring Macbeth’s witches, Titus Andronicus making a pie and Shylock cooking a pound of flesh were a hit, as were the moustachioed Friars explaining the huge number of fake deaths in Shakespearean plots. Less successful was a historical weather forecast and a couple of itemised rap songs that sailed over the audience’s heads. The sheer pace of delivery losing the nuance of a fantastically detailed script, Bradbury is obviously something of a Shakespeare scholar and if the pacing were slightly less frenetic, it would allow the humour and intellect space and time to breathe aiding understanding.

This is Shakespeare for the Horrible Histories generation and though purists may sneer, chatting to parents and children in the foyer afterwards it was clear they had all had an excellent time and even learned a few things too.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 27th July 2024

North West End UK Rating: