Reviews

Shakespeare for Breakfast

Editorial Staff

Macbeth mixed with Come Dine with Me, Lady Gaga, Ross from Friends – yes, it can only be early-morning Festival favourite Shakespeare for Breakfast. This year’s breathless offering sets the Scottish Play in a high school, with the witches as goths and a nervous Macbeth trying to usurp the position of head boy from Duncan (a dour Scot who’s unsure how many health clubs he owns). It’s a surprisingly efficient conceit.

It’s all great fun, very silly but performed with joyful abandon by the energetic young cast, who lose no opportunity for corny jokes or knowing asides. The laughs come thick and fast – keep your ears pinned back or you might miss one.

Felicity Russell is especially effective as a manipulative, power-hungry Beth (or Lady Macbeth), a cocksure cheerleader who makes her entrance assuring everyone that she’s better than they are. Tomas Wolstenholme plays Macduff as a faded PE teacher, and Bryony Corrigan and Monica Heisey get plenty of laughs as the two goth witches (the third is a sock puppet – don’t ask).

Audience involvement is minimal but creative, and a final dance routine sends the audience out for a day at the Fringe with a smile on their faces.

– David Kettle