My friend John reviewed The Shakespeare Review, currently showing at Richmond Theatre. He’s written a wonderful review, but it sounds like you have to actually see it to fully appreciate and it’s not really very easy to explain…
In this, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death I can think of no better way to celebrate his achievement than to go see the utterly fabulous series of comic songs and sketches in The Shakespeare Review that is now showing at the Richmond Theatre. For sheer joy and delight there is nothing like it. Three men, two women and a piano is all that Christopher Luscombe & Malcolm McKee need to produce this wonderful two hour magical tour de force. A wonderful set with a black back drop speckled with stars, a piano and four high stools facing the audience unbelievably suffices to create a sense of cabaret, music hall and night club.
During the course of this nonstop two hours the two pairs of Lizzie Bea/Alex Morgan and Alex Scott Fairley/Anna Stolli navigate their way through over 33 different songs and sketches. Ranging from Cole Porter classics like “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” – “When your baby is pleading for pleasure/Let her sample your Measure for Measure”, to new material by Maureen Lipman. One of the highlights that managed to bring the house down was “The English Lesson” in which Lizzie & Anna speak a wonderful Frenchified English by pointing to naming body parts starting with De Nail, De Hand, De Wrist, De Elbow, De Nose, De Chin and ending with De Count whilst pointing to their lower bodies. It is so funny and even more so when the audience are invited to join in with one half of the audience singing for Lizzie and the other for Anna.
The range of sketches is staggering. From the Man who speaks in Anagrams- “Two Netlemeg of Verona”- brilliantly spoken by Alex Morgan, to the touching Ballard Carrying a Torch sung so poignantly by Lizzie Bea to the relentless farce of And How is Hamlet? In which the hapless narrator finds that everyone is dead. Every time he starts to speak of a character he meets the word “Dead”. It is so well done. Curtain speech features the brilliant Alex Scott Fairley as a king dressed in a preposterous red robe so long it falls into the stalls. He then delivers a speech of pure comic genius “Send My lord Essex to Somerset and Earl Cobham to Kent” and so on. Very funny.
What’s so winning about this show is that it laughs with Shakespeare. It shows just how inexhaustible his plays are. The show ends with a fresh take on Cole Porters “Let’s Do It”. Singing the original version the cast add new material most memorably pointing out that even Richmond Theatre audiences “Do It” but only if they book in advance. So to enjoy this wonderful show get yourself down to Richmond Green any night this week, “Just do It” as they say.
