A fictitious group of random lovie thesps, a nun and Dervish get together to stage Hamlet (or possibly Hamlet – The Musical). Then Shakespeare’s ghost persuades a member of the cast to dig up his corpse and recover the ‘lost plays’ buried with him. Havoc ensues. It quickly becomes obvious that the plot is not the most important thing here – which is no bad thing. Harry Dickman’s Shakespeare gets all the best lines. This is an openly gay Shakespeare with attitude and an awful wife who has too sharp a tongue. As for the lovie thesps – Louis Brownhill’s Dervish deserves great credit for making an open beautiful face look really really stupid. Also Shamlet writer/ cast member Andrew Doyle somehow manages to play the whole thing totally serious and straight – a testament to his acting in a genuinely hilarious production. If Chris Morris wrote Acorn Antiques then you would be halfway to Shamlet.

MARTIN WALKER