Shit-Faced Showtime
The Warren
May 24
Shit-faced Showtime is an all-singing, all-dancing, all-drinking phenomenon from the professional piss-heads behind Shit-faced Shakespeare, we’ve seen how they can mangle the bard and yet still bring us quality thespians and here they swing Dorothy way up into a tornado of tequila and drop her into the 50% proof land of Oz .
By plan or delightful default it was one of the LGBT+ members of the cast who was getting drunk pre-show this time around, which added an extra frisson of #RuPaulDragRace campery to the usual inebriated revelry, we had a bender on a bender. There was some lovely moments of high kicking camp, the drunk actor pulled off some seriously impressive vocal moments and utterly seduced the audience with his silly naughty antics. We adored him, upstaging everyone with his intoxicated idiocy.
Featuring a cast of professionally trained musical theatre performers, classic show tunes, complex choreography and one slightly drunk actor every night who is then slowly made to drink more, tipping themselves over into camp overdrive, the show into a swirling pit of unpredictable nonsense and the other actors into an hour of surviving with their wit, tight camaraderie and a few pretty funny ad-libs.
My favorite was from the Tin Man, played by the drunk unable to remember what it was he wanted from the Wizard of Oz (a heart) and after chomping and stuttering a bit, and being heavily encouraged by the other cast members eventually shouted ‘I want a…..a………a boyfriend, a BOYFRIEND!’, beautiful! The packed audience loved it, and him and the night lurched on.
The fun lies not only in the off script drunken antics but also in the way the rest of the cast, recoil, react, bend and twist to keep the show going and the narrative making sense. They did OK last night, the drunk, although charming and engaging was not so very hot on the lines but added enough daft laughing, swirling around and some serious finger clicking to make things fun. The others delivered a pretty good version of the Wizard of Oz, great singing from the female members, the plot was a bit truncated and with a same-sex marriage shoved hastily in the last act, but it worked.
Shit-faced Showtime roared back to Brighton Fringe with their semi new show The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ last night, they promised to be wicked although it was bit more WKD and eventually got to the end of the yellow brick road, via some pretty odd soft verges and hard shoulders – including the audience getting told off by the rabble rousing host for chanting to the actor “down it”, which huh?……ain’t that the point Aunty ‘Em?. They pulled their very merry group of friends together, and Dorothy got home, as did the rest of the audience, very happy, highly entertained and with smiles on our faces.
I’ve seen them a few time, and always enjoyed it, it depends on the quality and type of the drunk, I rather prefer the bolshy, moody darker drunks I’ve seen, but last nights performance was as sweet as it was daft and in a room full of people, half of which I suspect had never seen the movie, or been so close to a sharp high-octane pissed up Po-Mo HoMo who was wowing us with his creative, unique, nerve and talent, and they managed to keep a huge level of enthusiastic audience engagement going.
And did he end by doing the drunken splits? or just fall over, it was difficult to tell from our seats, but I think it was the splits! in which case ! WOW!
Plays until May 28
For more info or to book tickets see here
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