The Improvisors are shaking their gory locks at us in Shakespeare – the Musical. As if improvising wasn’t a big enough challenge, these cream-faced loons are committed to setting it to music: Yea verily, forsooth!

It all starts as improv shows tend to, with the performers coming out dressed in black – each with a rather dog-eared ruff. We are hassled for not being enthusiastic enough, and get to shout things instead. The audience provides random elements that ensure this show will not be like any other, including a character, the title, an object and a place.

And we choose Tragedy over Comedy and History, almost unanimously.

The plot that unravels untidily before us is as hilarious as we could have hoped for. Visigoths are planning to sack Seville, where the Duke can’t be bothered ruling any more and gives his crown to an ex hairdresser who, unbeknownst to the Duke, had killed his beloved daughter Magdalena by brushing her hair too hard and accidentally pulling her head off. Yup. Makes perfect sense! Oops I mean Yea, verily and zounds, it maketh sense forsooth!

Musically the show just gets madder, including a certain amount of putting each other on the spot. Ralph Howell’s apprentice Visigoth goads Greg Ellis’ sleeping ex hairdresser and Yeoman to sing his sleep-talking to an 80s techno beat. Revenge is sweet later when Ellis elicits more and more ridiculous ‘noises off’ from his fellow players, much to the delight of us all.

There’s probably a bit too much Anglo-Saxon in the lines to be truly Shakespearean and only Ian Harcourt manages to keep the iambic pentameter going, along with the necessary rhyming couplet before sweeping off the stage (how does he do it? The man is a machine!). And I’m quite sure that Heavy Metal didn’t come along until a few hundred years after, but it all adds to the fun!

The show ends with an impassioned if completely illogical denouement from Deana Elvins’ as the Duke’s Mother, and an ensemble piece that manages to tie the importance of using conditioner to the human condition.

Brilliant! Shakespeare would be so very, very proud!
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