Review: SH!T-FACED SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET at Leicester Square Theatre

Date: 13th August 2025

Stars: 3

Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare: Hamlet took a very sober tragedy and turned it on its head with unpredictable hilarity, and yet, somehow, the scaffold of Shakespeare’s story remained intact.

The concept is pretty simple, and also absolutely chaotic: take a Shakespeare play, cast it with capable, sober actors, and then get one of them very drunk before the show. Last night’s victim was Princess Donnough, playing both Ophelia and Horatio.

From the start, the rest of the cast had that look of people strapping themselves in for a bumpy ride because the sober actors keep the story moving along, trying to corral the tipsy one into roughly following the plot, while the audience gets to enjoy watching them fail spectacularly. In the wrong hands, it could be mean-spirited, but here there’s a sense of gleeful complicity – they’re all in on the joke, even when the drunk one derails the scene entirely.

And derail it she did. The first major tangent came when Horatia spotted the late king’s ghost (whose name she’d clearly forgotten) and described him as “walking sideways like a crab.” That was it – the rest of the show had crab-walking ghosts popping up at every opportunity, as well as variations on the script to include the idea. Later, instead of despairing at the prospect of going to England, Horatia cheerfully announced she was from Croydon, which led to a wholesale accent change and a sprinkling of south London slang for the rest of the evening. Watching Hamlet’s most loyal companion suddenly sounding like they were about to sell you a dodgy watch outside East Croydon station was… oddly perfect.

The good bits were wonderful – it’s genuinely funny in a messy, unrepeatable way where you know the show you’re seeing could never be replicated exactly. The improv skills of the sober cast are razor-sharp – they manage to keep the plot more or less intact while rolling with whatever nonsense is thrown at them. The atmosphere is loose, rowdy, and a little bit anarchic, which feels exactly right for Shakespeare when you strip away the reverence.

The not-so-good? Well, if you’re after a clear, faithful Hamlet, you’re in the wrong place. Some scenes inevitably sag under the weight of drunken tangents, and there’s the occasional moment where the joke stretches a bit too far. Also, if you’re not in the mood for audience participation (or having beer occasionally sprayed in your direction), it might be a long night.

But as a night out, it’s hard to beat for sheer silliness. Watching Princess Donnough gleefully unravel Shakespeare’s tragedy – from crab ghosts to Croydon banter – felt like being in on a pub story that’s somehow grown into full-scale theatre. And, let’s be honest, that’s probably exactly what the Bard would have wanted.

If you fancy seeing what happens between now and 21st September, tickets are available here: https://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/show/sht-faced-shakespeare-hamlet/