Shakespeare for Breakfast
What a civilized way to begin your day at the festival, brush up your Shakespeare, while you have breakfast. Well a cup of tea and a croissant that you have to clutch while jammed into packed narrow seats in a full steamy theatre. It’s not really the classiest experience, but it is heaps of fun and it helps if you are familiar with the works of the Bard.
Shakespeare for Breakfast happens every year at C at the Fringe, but it is a different show every year. When I saw it in 2004 it was a sort of High School Musical and last year it was an all female cast. This year a cast of seven presented several of Shakespeare’s characters magically transported in an accident by Prospero from The Tempest into the world of modern television. A pretty hackneyed way to popularise Shakespeare you may think? Perhaps, but the performers were so good and the script so well written, they pulled it off admirably.
The core characters of the show who travelled through time & space (and yes, briefly met The Doctor along the way) were Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth & Lady Macbeth. Prospero sent them through the mysterious vortex with the aid of his trusty Ariel (an aerial). Murcutio was there too, for some unfathomable reason and the lead actress of the piece introduced the show as Shakespeare himself then played various TV personalities such as from The Weakest Link and from The UK Apprentice.
What I really loved about this production was that they not only used the dialogue from the plays for some good laughs, they also provided some lovely insight into the characters that those with only a casual knowledge may not have picked up. For example, that the great tragic lovers Romeo & Juliet were not only kids who’d married 12 hours after meeting, but they actually bickered constantly and didn’t agree on very much, so how happy might they have actually been, had they survived? Macbeth was portrayed as rather henpecked and the couples did some sideswiping which was a hoot. There were some serious moments that were handled beautifully and all was well that ended well. Perhaps the funniest moment in the show was the reworking of Hamlets entire To Be or Not to Be speech into a cake selling marketing campaign. It was a great production this year that I can highly recommend.
Visit the Fringe Website for booking details.