Sh!t-faced Shakespeare: Hilarious comedy show delights crowd and proves chaotic at Scarborough Spa

A theatre company like no other, Sh!t-faced Shakespeare® takes a seven some of professional actors, a Shakespearean script and throws a bucket-load of booze into the mix – and it made for a hilarious evening at Scarborough Spa’s theatre.

The show began with the compere explaining how the show worked – and that one actor had had five cans of Neck Oil and a bottle of Prosecco before the show, as well as some local fish and chips.

He then proceeded to hand out a tambourine and a gong to two members of the audience for them to use once if the drunk actor got too sober, and then they would pause the show to give them a drink on stage.

A bucket was also handed to a member of the audience in case the drunk actor needed to be sick.

Much Ado About Nothing is the Shakespeare story of love and deception and takes place between characters Claudio, Hero, Beatrice and Benedick, bad guy Don John and mother/aunt Leonata.

The drunken actor of the evening was Stacey Norris who played Leonata and she added absoultely hilarious lines to the performance, switched back to her normal Essex accent and provided chaos – to the delight of the crowd.

The costumers were very Shakespeare and despite the compere’s fabulous glittery outfit, when the show began you felt like you were going to watch a normal production, despite the warning beforehand.

The show began with a scene between Hero, Beatrice and Leonata with the latter confirming that the war had ended and Claudio would be back but straight away she gave up with her script and ad-libbed her way through.

The other actors, who were sober, handled the frequent script-changes well and improvised the script to fit with Leonata’s version and it worked perfectly, adding to the hilarity of the night.

It was so funny, members of the crowd (and myself) were crying with laughter which egged the actor on.

Things got more chaotic in the second half of the show as the actor got more drunk, she brought out a blow-up doll and added it to the story.

As Shakespeare himself once said: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women (and sex dolls) merely players.”

Leonata introduced the doll as her best friend and would not let go until she used it to ‘kill’ Don John with.

Scenes were cut in order to finish the show on time but no one minded as the genius performance outshined anything that we could have seen that evening.

The unconventional performance of Much Ado About Nothing was absolute madness, hilariously chaotic and very, very funny.