Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Sh!tfaced Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Sh!tfaced Shakespeare
Genre: Classical and Shakespeare, Comedy, Improvised Theatre
Venue: Underbelly
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A Fringe staple, Sh!tfaced Shakespeare is back for another classic adaptation, and this year we’re in the Forest of Athens for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Chaos ensues.
Review
Can anything be really labelled a Fringe staple at this point? Surely Sh!tfaced Shakespeare, by now, has earned that right. Back again for the fifteenth year on the August circuit, rosy-cheeked and stinking slightly of whatever the actor-in-question has been drinking for four hours straight before the performance, this year’s offering is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a fever dream indeed it seems to be.
The concept is simple. Five actors, one of which is absolutely inebriated, act out the plot of a Shakespeare play on stage. I say plot loosely – as with these types of things, everything tends to get derailed rather quickly. Gone are the elegant soliloquies and RADA honed performances, and instead, a night of Shakespearean silliness as said drunk actor goes where the whims of fate take them. It’s a fantastic concept.
Our drunk actor for the night, Maryam Grace as Hermia, graced the stage with a whirlwind of energy. It seems she’s a chaotic drunk, as within the first few scenes she’s talking about Tudor-esque OnlyFans and romping around the stage with her next drink in hand. At one point during our performance, she’s convinced that Lysander has turned into a mushroom. Alas, he has not – it’s just a rather heavy prop, and it’s even worse – she doesn’t even like mushrooms.
The rest of the cast do an excellent job of adapting to whatever she throws out there. A full cast of eight, there’s six actors on stage each night, rotating roles so that they can protect their livers slightly, and no one gets drunk two nights in a row. One is the compère, who helps the action sort of stay on track and takes care of the drunk actor, which can turn into silliness in itself.
For our performance, Jessica Brindle was in the aforementioned role, with David Ellis as Puck, Richard Hughes as Lysander, Patrick Knowles as Demetrius and Freya Alderson as Helena. A well-balanced cast, all with strong comedy chops, you can tell just how much fun they’re all having on stage, and it’s infectious.
A tried and tested concept, it’s a slick and well thought out production. If you’re coming for Shakespeare, it might not be your best bet, but then it’s not supposed to be.
Certainly not for the younger crowd or any Shakespeare purists, the night is full of raucous laughter and some gentle audience participation. This, one would feel, is Shakespeare as he’s meant to be enjoyed – a performance full of lewd jokes, slapstick humour, and just good old-fashioned drunkenness. An absolute crowd-pleaser, I imagine Sh!tfaced Shakespeare will be back for many more years to come.
