It's Shakespeare's birthday on Friday: happy birthday Bill! And this means we all need to go to a Sainsbury's in south-east London in order to join Teatro Vivo in their annual Supermarket Shakespeare performances. We loved what they did last year, giving a fresh, contemporary twist to Sonnet 91 and placing characters and their intertwining stories in and around the grocery aisles.
This year, it's Sonnet 23 getting the special in-store treatment and the actors will be shopping, lingering around the fruit and veg or prodding chops at the meat counter just like anyone else and the store announcements may well be made in rhyming couplets... and there's always the risk you'll follow a bickering couple having it out with one another by the toilet rolls thinking they're part of the show when actually they're locals who never manage a nice shopping trip together. Teatro Vivo are very good at putting theatre into non-theatre spaces, and we guarantee you'll start seeing the potential for drama - all comic, tragic, mysterious, uplifting varieties - in every location after one of their shows.
The first performances takes place tomorrow in Lee Green Sainsbury's with further performances scheduled up to 16 May in Lewisham, Forest Hill and New Cross Sainsbury's. Compile your shopping list, don't forget your reusable bags and enjoy some contemporary Shakespeare as you put together your dinner ingredients. Performances are free AND you can win shopping vouchers if you're not too laden with shopping to snap a few pictures and then submit them to Teatro Vivo's competition.
For more information on Supermarket Shakespeare and in which branches of Sainsbury's to find it, go to the Teatro Vivo website.
