22 – 23 April

Last night’s show began with a suitably quirky prologue delivered by performers David Woods and Jon Haynes. Taking the form of an informal chat, it included an odd trigger warning or two, a brief discussion of cancel culture, and an equally unusual request, the details of which I will not reveal. Suffice to say that the audience was very willing to comply. All this, we were assured, was not part of the play proper, and was more to be thought of as ‘like Torvill and Dean before they got off their knees.’

Written and directed by Woods and Haynes, Alas! Poor Yorick takes the gravedigger scene from Hamlet and runs off with it into decidedly Beckett-like absurdist territory. On second thoughts, ‘runs’ might not be the appropriate verb, given that the first half hour is a slow-moving depiction of the gravediggers laboriously re-positioning Ophelia’s grave, and then discovering that they were mistaken in doing so. In this pointless task they are aided by a donkey with a smoker’s cough, played with plodding, long-suffering resignation by Woods. In a bleakly funny slow-burn depiction of futility, planks are lifted, transported and re-laid, and then lifted, transported and re-laid again.

When his co-worker isn’t looking one gravedigger (Haynes) breaks into a self-absorbed song-and-dance routine. It is, perhaps, a glimpse of another life that he might have had, or maybe not. Theatre of this kind engages the audience by daring us to find meaning where none may exist. It is in our nature to try to give shape and purpose to chaos, but it can be hard work and not for those whose taste is for less demanding kinds of entertainment.

Though little happens in the first half-hour, what follows starts with a breathless gallop through the preceding four acts of Hamlet. Woods and Haynes are talented clowns, and there is splendid buffoonery in their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mimed depictions of all the key scenes. Much of the fun lies, of course, in recognising which bit is which, though what someone relatively unfamiliar with Hamlet would make of it all is anyone’s guess. The pace slows a little when Hamlet himself arrives at the graveside. Played by Haynes with a touch of rhotacism –  he is a wather foppish Pwince – he is given to spouting soliloquies at random, though he does finally get round to addressing poor Yorick’s skull. The final ten minutes involves skilful physical comedy that cranks up the silliness even further. It is frenetic, foolish and involves a clever twist to the narrative flow.

The programme notes make it clear that that Ridiculusmus are going through a very hard time financially. Loss of funding and two disastrous fires have dealt severe blows to a theatre company that has proudly presented ‘seriously funny’ work for the past thirty-four years. Anyone who values independent theatre will surely wish them well.

★★★☆☆ Mike Whitton, 23 April 2026