CAMP TAKE ON BARD SET TO BE COMEDY CLASSIC
Chaotic and slapstick story of skulduggery plays it for laughs all the way and has the audience hooting in their seats
It’s just as well the publicity for Shamlet was predominantly bright pink, because this “improbable farce” was camper than Larry Grayson and Russell Harty put together.
The show was so chaotic and slapstick that it really could have gone either way – fortunately, it landed very much on its feet.
The story focused on Marcus, played by Andrew Doyle, whose boyish looks might have meant he was miscast, but for his complete confidence. He wanted to violate Shakespeare’s grave, and to steal both his bones and his lost plays buried there with him.
As a cover story, he arranges the staging of a Shakespeare play in a theatre near the graveyard. So far so (more or less) plausible.
SADISTIC
What sent the story spiralling towards the utterly bizarre, was the fact the person who tipped him off about the lost plays was none other but the host of Shakespeare himself!
Harry Dickman snatched the role of the bard and ran away with it brilliantly, while his decidedly unlovely wife, Anne Hathaway, was exquisitely played against type by Lise Cervi.
These central characters were surrounded by a marvellous supporting cast, who themselves played the cast of the diversionary play – Claire Carroll as Joan, the stern director; Sarah Waddell as the sadistic Geraldine; Oliver Burton as prima-donna Isambard, a now faded star; Lise Cervi in a second main role as Irish Nun, Bernadette; Louis Brownhill as Dervish, a weird cross between Dennis the Menace and Frank Spencer; and, best of all, Chris Vincent as ultra-camp Neil, an odd mixture of Craig Hill and Stan Laurel.
It’s to their credit that with such a diverse and larger than life cast, they all came across clearly and distinctively, with Vincent edging ahead as the show stopping butt of so many jokes.
Marcus and Shakespeare’s plan goes wrong, of course, and the play (within the play) falls apart as cast members bruise one another’s tender egos and suffer unspeakable indignities. But this is farce, and it is Emma Taylor’s deft direction that pulls all of these preposterous characters together, creating often hysterical, always wonderfully shambolic moments of theatre.
The two musical numbers alone are almost worth the price of admission, but there were several other great scenes as well.
The auditions were lovingly reminiscent of Peter Cook ad Dudley Moore’s brilliant Tarzan audition, while Anne Hathaway writhing and dancing at the thought of Boney M or Perry Como had the audience laughing and hooting.
The frighteningly convincing dominatrix scene between Marcus and Geraldine will stay imprinted on many minds for a long time to come and all the scenes between Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway were just out of this world. Shamlet may never boast Kenneth Branagh as it’s star, but that surely won’t stop it from becoming a classic comedy.
MARTIN LENON