Shakespeare? Set in Southend-on-Sea? In blank verse?

You’d think the joke would wear thin after the first ten minutes, but it didn’t.

Fakespeare captured the essence of Shakespeare with its convoluted and slightly incomprehensible plot of love, death and men in drag, all squeezed into an hour’s entertainment. There were (mainly) cheap laughs to be had – a few nods to the Brighton audience and plenty at Southend’s expense.

It was an impressive performance, with the blank verse giving a poignancy to the alcohol-fuelled filth that goes on during an average Friday night.

One quibble: it was as hard to follow as some of the Bard’s endeavours. Perhaps fewer popular culture references would have enabled us to better appreciate lines such as “She was my lady and thou poked at her like a Facebook loner” and “Oh, Kerry Katona. An Iceland trolley full of her products could not defrost my anger”.