One actor drunk, the rest soberly soldiering on through Shakespeare. It’s a crowd-pleasing premise, and the chaos is real. But if you don’t know your Midsummer Night’s Dream inside out, a lot of the humour sails past. Funny? Yes, at times. Insightful? Not so much.
On paper, this sounds like a perfect Fringe mash-up: take a cast of classically trained Shakespearean actors, lace one of them with enough booze to make Falstaff blush, then watch the Bard’s poetry get sideswiped by slurred asides, physical stumbles, and improvised derailments. In theory, it’s both a homage to the rough and ready theatrical tradition and a sharp parody of Shakespearean reverence.
The night I saw it, the chosen drunk was Lysander, who gradually morphed into “the crazy little Greek kid who gap-yeared in Rome,” a strange but recurring motif that popped up in increasingly bizarre moments. Another running gag came from a completely unrelated tangent into Home Alone 2, because, well, why not? The sober cast gamely tried to weave these wild detours back into the plot, which was half the fun.
Audience interaction also had its moments. A front-row gent found himself transformed into Titania, complete with wig, courtesy of Puck, whose delight in the makeover was infectious. The dream sequence that followed was one of the evening’s highlights: Puck playing a tiny piano at the side of the stage while the scene unfolded in surreal slow motion. These flourishes showed the company’s knack for improvising visual comedy alongside verbal chaos.
The audience roared at the sheer absurdity of it all, the slurred lines, the off-script anecdotes, the physical gags that no sober director would ever approve. And yet… I found myself watching the room more than the stage. Those who knew Midsummer Night’s Dream well, the plot beats, the language, the double meanings, clearly got more out of it. They recognised when a punchline had been subverted, or when the script had gone gloriously off piste. Without that deep familiarity, the main joke risks boiling down to: “Look, he’s drunk.” That’s funny for a while, but it’s not endlessly sustaining.
By the final scene, I felt a bit like I was at a party where I didn’t know half the in-jokes. Yes, the drunk meets Bard conceit is an entertaining novelty, and the show is clearly a well-oiled machine (pun entirely intended) that can weather whatever chaos the night’s chosen tippler throws at it. But as a piece of theatre, it felt more like a stunt than a revelation.
The crowd around me loved it, and maybe that’s the point. Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare is, after all, built for shared laughter, communal silliness, and a bit of carnage in a grand hall. If that’s what you’re looking for, it delivers. If you’re hoping for Shakespeare reframed in a way that sticks with you, you might leave as I did: bemused rather than transformed.
21:15 Daily Till 24th August
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2025SHTFACE
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 13th August 2025
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr 10mins
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