Charity fundraiser
Some of the country’s leading lawyers are heading to the West End next week, joining TV stars Lee Mack and Richard Ayoade for a courtroom showdown over a surprisingly divisive question of whether Shakespeare is actually funny.
The one night only mock trial takes place at the Criterion Theatre on Monday 8 December, raising funds for charity Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation.
High Court judge Dame Joanna Smith will oversee the action as the audience is transported into a part-scripted, part-improvised legal battle. The story goes that comedian Will Kemp has stormed out of Shakespeare’s acting company and hauled the playwright before the court, complaining he was driven to despair by having to perform dodgy jokes every night.
KCs Kate Gallafent and Dinah Rose of Blackstone Chambers will argue the case alongside Edward Henry of Mountford Chambers and Andrew Hochhauser of Essex Court.
Ayoade (Travel Man and IT Crowd) will take the stand with Oxford Uni’s professor Emma Smith, while Lee Mack (Not Going Out) plays Kemp and Paterson Joseph (Peep Show) portrays fellow performer Robert Armin. Comedian Miles Jupp is also set to appear, while both a mystery witness and the casting of Shakespeare himself remain tightly under wraps.
Dame Smith commented: “This is the latest in a series of celebrated celebrity courtroom showdowns, and promises to be a playful, fast moving, irreverent evening of razor-sharp repartee, which I’m very much looking forward to presiding over”.