Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit are Sh!t Theatre, they love Dolly Parton and they are broke. Rebecca lives on a houseboat with her adorable Spanish born dog and Louise, finding London too expensive, has moved to Leeds. The situation is dire.
Where their friend Charlie (who looks like a dictators wife who has just murdered her husband) finds some funding in her native Malta for a show as part of Valletta 2018 City of Culture (a year after Hull…) they take advantage of an opportunity to see Charlie, to put on a show and make some desperately needed money.
What starts off as an opportunity to perform in Europe before Brexit kicks in with a show that involves talking to British immigrants…sorry ‘expats’ about what brings them to Malta and ‘The Pub’, where Oliver Reed died becomes a darker tale about Maltese corruption, the assassination of a journalist and the migrant crisis.
Louise and Becca, dressed as sailors with sandals and socks provide a humorous and drunken show with an on stage bar (I ended up with Fosters and Rum. What a night) that looks at what it means to be European, from Biscuit’s stray dog to a small island who offers European citizenship for a bargain price of €650,000. As the United Kingdom tries to throw away its membership this show looks at the desperate measures some will take to be European whether they can afford to buy it or if they can afford to risk death on the migrant boats.
This work in progress is still on book but it is an interactive show, with free booze, sea shanties and video from their Malta production. When their show is threatened by the organisers they don’t cancel but instead cut the contentious material by dancing to Simply Red for 10 minutes. Finding the fun in a difficult subject is not easy but Drink Rum with Expats is a fun show that makes its audience think at a time when the theatre world has mostly ignored the impact of Brexit Sh!t Theatre are tackling what it means to be European head on.
Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats was on at Croydonites Festival on the 10 May. You can find future show dates here
View from the Cheap Seat 