Staged in an intimate, archaic room at the rear of a Gothic revival church there was definitely a sense of history conversing when the two musicians welcomed the audience. I was intrigued by the tongue-in-cheek titled Shakey P who plainly dressed and unassuming introduced himself and the show with a lesson in history. Here, the masterful control of language by our lecturers seamlessly initiated what would become an hour of intelligent, hilarious excitement which summoned Mephistopheles from the pits of hell and even rapped into existence a timid schoolboy Shakespeare.
Witty, fast-paced and stimulating The Stories of Shakey P demands an entirely new take on classic literature. While the reimagining of Shakespeare is by no means an original idea (established companies like Shitfaced Shakespeare have made this their forte) never before have I seen just one man accompanied by two musicians capture the fierce intellect, theatricality and diversity of a Shakespearian production with such a limited set-up. Charlie Dupre condenses great works of literature into 15 minute episodes of rip-roaring entertainment but he also serves as a master class in condensing a full range of characters into one brilliant solo performance.
What really makes this tight and enthralling performance is Dupre’s wholly believable passion for what he is doing. In every sense he gives it his all and the plays are brought screaming into the 21st century with neither prop nor costume. While the genuinely poignant and thrilling reworking of Othello illuminates universal themes and recalls Eminem’s ‘Stan’, the riotous Macbeth is a jaw-dropping feat of characterisation, complete with the three 3 witches of varying locality! The freestyle interlude was perfect and provided some light relief after an intense first half. As with Shakespeare and Marlowe, Dupre’s performance insists that you sit up and pay full attention. In just seconds Dupre exhibits low and high level humour, cultural nods to modernity and of course wry and informed reference to literature. If you are not attentive to every reference then you will regardless be in awe of Dupre’s sheer linguistic skill and near flawless performance.
We are told that poetry’s iambic pentameter is really the same as contemporary rap and then are shown how truly modern the classics of literature can be. Occasionally the show verged on the descriptive side and could have benefited from a more imaginative angle like that of Othello’s evocation of Eminem but all in all it was a delight to behold Dupre’s passionate and energised performance which left me eager to revisit some of the great works I thought I already knew.
