Its Sunday afternoon and I am heading into the Seymour Centre accompanied by two Assistant reviewers, Dom (9) and Nathan (14). We are attending the return of The Listies’ hit, The Tragedy Of Hamlet: Prince Of Skidmark. It is important to note that neither of my assistants know the story of Hamlet. They know ‘of’ it and that is all. On the other hand I have never attended a Listies show, so we balance out nicely.
The Everest theatre is packed and three quarters of the audience are excited… very excited. Our ‘ushers’ wander the audience chatting to people briefly before heading on stage to announce the show only to discover the actors are all suffering from the ‘Brown Plague’, brought on by a slightly out of date food gift hamper. Rather than send everyone home the ushers decide to do an abridged version of the 4 hour epic. We have 59 minutes before one of them will also suffer the same fate so they need to rush over a bit of the story.
The wonderful secret to this show is that it does so much, while appearing to be so silly. There are fart jokes, poo jokes, vomit jokes all mixed into a brief introduction to Shakespeare. Just like an afternoon at the Globe theatre really, well maybe. The show does not simply target a specific age group, it ‘scatter-guns’ the whole spectrum. There were 
jokes for the little ones, for the teenagers and for the adults. Bieber, Trump, zombies (yes there could have been zombies in Shakespeare) and one of the biggest moments in the show for my assistant reviewers, the ‘dab and floss dance’, are all snuck onto this one hour non-stop craziness. With the assistance of the stage manager [Courtney Stewart], we even get a beefed up Oprah… sorry Ophelia as she becomes a ninja, zombie warrior. Yep, the team decide that Hamlet needs an update and everyone dying at the end from a sword fight could be improved if Ophelia’s role was slightly re-written. The final number of the show is Ophelia’s song “O-PHE-LI-A, Trained by a nun and a dinosaur!, O-PHE-LI-A, Didn’t have many lines so Matt wrote more!”
The Listies [Richard Higgins, Matt Kelly] are old hands at entertaining kids of all ages and its showed how successful they were with the hysteria in the room and the line up for photos and autographs after the show.
So how did my assistant reviewers react. It was a smashing success from both of them. They loved it. Dom’s favourite bits were the Dinosaur and the dab and floss dance (yep, I learned something new that day as well) – If only Shakespeare had thought of adding those bits. Nathan loved the ghost on the castle walls gag ‘Egyptian Nylon, 100% washable’. Interestingly he thought that scene was one of added by the Listies. Mine.. well I was pretty impressed with Poo-Lonious and Ophelia’s Ninja, Zombie fight with the Dinosaur. So a good introduction to Shakespeare although they may be a little disappointed when they go to the original text and find out what bits are not in it. Nevertheless, this version of Hamlet is smash hit.
Lynden Jones – Theatre Now
The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark
A Badaptation of the Bard by The Listies
Duration: 60 min
4 – 22 July 2018
Tuesday – Saturday 10:30am
Sat 2:30
13, 15, 20, 22 July 2:30pm
Venue: Seymour: Everest Theatre
Theatre Company: Sydney Theatre Company
25 – 27 July 2018
Venue: Riverside: Lennox Theatre
Theatre Company: Sydney Theatre Company
Wednesday – Friday 6:30am
Thur & Fri 11am Matinee
One of the funniest introductions to Shakespeare imaginable. ★★★★ Sunday Telegraph
After winning over everyone who came to see it in 2016, this very cheeky, very clever, utterly irreverent riff on Hamlet – made especially for children – is back for an eagerly anticipated return season. The Listies, maestros of children’s entertainment, have pulled apart Shakespeare’s classic and glued it back together with hilarious costumes, loads of silliness and plenty of interactivity.
Hamlet is already full of things kids love in a good story: ghosts, castles, sword fights, bodily fluids and spooky stuff. Add to the mix some super-sonic gags and expertly timed stage magic unlike anything kids have seen before and you have a brilliantly disguised Shakespearean tragedy for everyone aged five and over.
And that’s not all… expect bonus pillow fights, pirates, ninjas, ninja pirates, aliens, ninja pirate aliens, zombies and a bunch of other hilarious stuff as The Listies take kids and their adults on a fun-filled hour of theatre. The only thing we can be sure of is that everyone dies at the end – including the audience!
Warning: Filming and photography not permitted
