Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2005

Shakespeare for Breakfast
C, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Austin Williams
posted 27 August 2005

With a complimentary strong coffee and croissant this 10am start is an ideal remedy after a night on the town and a great way to start the day.

The opening number - a cabaret scene setter - made me fear for the worst, but whatever your mood, I challenge you not to smile at this year's Shakespeare for Breakfast production, now in its 14th year at the Fringe and guaranteed another 14 at this rate.

With a cast of characters including Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Julius Caesar, I had gone along expecting a '100 Best Shakespearean snippets' type of show, with an educational bias. Instead what you get is a romping pantomime that situates each character in a reality TV framework. The plot, such as it is, takes place in the forest of Arden, with the Shakespearean celebrities featuring in 'I'm Julius Caesar, Get Me Out Of Here!' It contains the health warning, 'Remember, this is Shakespeare: people will die.'

Hosted by Ant and Dec complete with self-confessed terrible Geordie accents and a Big Brother voiceover, we are introduced to Romeo, a Glaswegian chav; Juliet, the dippy Victoria Beckham; Katie, an Australian feminist harpy who constantly reminds us that she's been in an abusive relationship.

My personal favourites were Hamlet, an actor's actor who Hams it up (played by Alyssa Kyria, doubling up as Kate); and Macbeth, a frustrated sex-pest (played by Frances Buckroyd doubling up as Cleopatra) who, lusting after Kate, thrusts his crotch in her direction and tempts her with the seductive chat-up line: 'Say helloo to Mr Sporran!' If Shakespeare had been commissioned to write a Carry On script, this would have been it.