Photo Flash: In Rehearsal with Sh*t-faced Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Love it or hate it, Shit-faced Shakespeare still three sheets to the wind and bouncing in a bacchic revel from one success to another. 2017 marks the 7th anniversary of the brand and sees their longest run in London with Much Ado About Nothing, coupled with the opening of their 4th market in the USA, Romeo and Juliet at the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe festivals, plus dates at the LonDon Wonderground, Udderbelly Southbank for both Shit-faced Shakespeare and Shit-faced Showtime. Around 30,000 people saw Shit-faced Shakespeare in the UK last year, 35,000 in the USA. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below!

Much Ado About Nothing is possibly Shakespeare's most well loved romantic comedy, filled with mistaken identities, petty arguments and put-downs, and the course of love not running smoothly (not least of all because friends keep interfering). Sounds like a Friday night in any British boozer. But what if Hero decides she really would rather marry the chap in the second row, or if Benedick can't stand up?

So how does it work? Well each performance has a cast of 7 actors, who all arrive 4 hours before the start of the show for a 'party' - however this party is dry for all but one performer, who gets Shit-faced. The rest is a balancing act between the (trimmed down to an hour) Shakespeare script and improv rules, which state you must go with WHATEVER the drunk actor decides to do. "Yes, and..." rather than "No, but...". Every single show is a one-off. Every single performance has a different drunk actor. Every single time they are genuinely inebriated.

Directed by Stacey Norris, the cast features Beth-Louise Priestley, Jack Bence, James Murfitt, John Mitton, Louise Lee, Rob Smythson, Ruth Williams, Saul Marron, Stacey Norris and Victoria Fitz-Gerald.

Formed in 2010 by a group of East15 graduates (largely), Magnificent BastaRD Productions were just friends who loved creating unexpected and unpredictable theatre at music festivals such as Secret GArden Party. Shit-faced now performs across the UK and USA in Boston, Atlanta and Austin USA, adding Minnesota into the mix on the 20th January 2017. They sell-out at the Edinburgh and Brighton Fringes annually, and in 2015 expanded into Shit-faced Showtime, a pissed-up hour of harmonious Broadway showtunes. This summer they return to the Leicester Square theatre for a whopping five months, their longest stint yet, with the London premier of Shit-faced Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing.

Performances will run 11 Apr - 16 Sept, Tues - Sat 7pm (occasionally 9.30pm - please see website for details) at Leicester Square Theatre, 6 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BX. Prices: £21.50 - £19.50 at www.leicestersquaretheatre.com or by calling 020 7734 2222. Running Time: 70 minutes | Suitable for ages 16+. For more information, visit www.magnificentbastard.co.uk.