Styling themselves as variety performers, The Drama boys - an all male company hailing from Cornwall - say on their flyers that they cover everything ‘From Shakespeare to slapstick, with mime, song and newly commissioned sketch comedy’. Whilst All or Nothing does indeed cover these areas, none are delivered with any real conviction or panache.
Their scenes from Shakespeare's Hamlet were well rehearsed and performed with excellent diction and clarity, however apart from this it was a rather dry performance which ranged between overly dramatic to downright boring. It felt as if the actors didn’t truly understand what the words they were saying meant a lot of the time and therefore it was understandably difficult for the right intonation to be achieved. One bright spot was Hamlet himself, played by Charles Secombe, who for the most part gave a nuanced and measured performance but even he succumbed to blandness when faced with the renowned ‘to be or not to be’ speech.
The newly commissioned sketch comedy was also found wanting much of the time as there was very little that felt new about it. Much of the subject matter felt rehashed which left many of the skits feeling flat even if the acting in them was capable. A skit that felt particularly dated was a Matrix parody that, whilst drawing the biggest laughs of the show, never really broke new ground from the countless others that have come since the film’s release.
Whilst there is nothing truly offensive to the eyes or ears in this show, it is precisely that which is the problem. It plays it safe by trying to appeal to as many people as possible and in the end the show suffers for it, feeling flat and disjointed as it lurches wildly between average comedy and average Shakespeare.