Review: SH!T-FACED SHOWTIME®: A PISSEDMAS CAROL, Leicester Square Theatre
Photo credit: Andrew AB Photography
Sh!t-faced Showtime® boasts a professional cast of highly skilled performers, with one crucial twist: each night, one of them (a different cast member every performance) gets, to use the company’s own colloquial language, smashed. Known for their Sh!t-faced Shakespeare, a Fringe success story that began some 15 years ago, this unorthodox company has since branched out to include other literary greats in their repertoire. And what better time of year than now to bring A Pissedmas Carol to Leicester Square Theatre, for a crowd looking for some cheer… and plenty of cheers.
The tone is set early. This is not trying to be anything other than what it says on the tin. The company are upfront about the chaos to come, with the clear objective of letting the unexpected be a player in the performance.
Chances are you know some, if not all, of the plot of A Christmas Carol. Neither we, nor the show itself, are going to go over that in detail, as it’s part of the Western world’s Christmas narrative: Scrooge, three ghosts, a hard lesson learned. Instead, the production takes the story and loosely weaves it around musical numbers and gleeful disruption. For example, Tears for Fears’ ‘Mad World’ takes on new meaning during one of Scrooge’s ghostly visions, so much so it feels as if it were written for Mr Dickens himself.
And then there is the person of the hour: Izzy Wore Wright. Significantly sloshed, she delivers complete carnage on stage, barely holding on to her roles as Tiny Tim and Belle. The laughter at her expense is genuine and relentless, yet somehow, she steers that ship, drunkenly, perhaps, into exactly what the crowd is there to see. No cast member is safe. Tiny Tim will never be the same for us again.
Special mentions are well deserved. Dan Quirk’s Scrooge is playful, cranky and wonderfully adept at riffing off the chaos around him. Alice Merivale shines with a fantastic voice and sharp comic instinct, keeping the show both unhinged and grounded in perfect measure as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Mary Cratchit. Hal Hillman also steals some gloriously unruly moments, at times seeming to forget he is not drunk as well. Director Katy Baker has pulled off what feels like part panto, part logistical feat, while musical director Charlotte Brooke improvises fearlessly alongside the cast.
No one knows exactly where the show will go. There are clearly structures in place to allow for more or less of whatever the night needs to make it work, and we are very much in good hands with this team. It’s not highbrow. They know it, we know it, and they say so in the introduction, but it sits refreshingly against theatrical exclusivity. The audience is filled with people realising, perhaps for the first time, that theatre can be funny, risky, and joyfully out of control.
It will bring a chuckle (and possibly a heckle) to even the most adamant Scrooges out there.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Stephanie Osztreicher
