Brush up your Shakespeare and begrime your mind ahead of time to wring all possible pleasure from this depraved and debaucherous play. Shrewd in its commentary on gender and power play but refreshingly earnest in its treatment of romance, this feel good bad boy adaptation is a delight to sink your teeth into.
The bite of its unabashedly lewd and unrestrainedly hedonistic humour does little to shield the vulnerability at the story’s heart, that of two people who think they might be able to make something good together that neither one of them has alone.
Unremittingly hilarious over the roughly hour-long runtime of raw hijinks, performers Zak Rosen (Petruchio) and Paige Hann (Katharina) nonetheless conjure moments of disarming beauty in the frenzy of arming, dismantling, subverting, perverting, and playing.
Come prepared for audience participation and remember your safe word because this powerful play has anything but defanged in the four hundred years since Shakespeare’s players first performed it.
With teeth sharpened by these able adapters’ razor wits, Taming of the Shrew: A Kinky Retelling is wilder than ever.
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 29th September 2026
North West End UK Rating: