The stand-up comedian describes how he gave a modern twist to the Porter’s dark jokes in a new RSC production directed by Wils Wilson
Shakedowns of Shakespeare scramble the settings. Here’s Romeo and Juliet as cokehead Californians, King Lear as a cattle baron, and Titus Andronicus as an ombudsman. But the text remains sacrosanct – Emma Rice’s nibbling at the pentameters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream irking Globe purists as recently as 2016.
So I was surprised when, at the end of March, the director Wils Wilson invited me, a stand-up comedian, to collaborate with Shakespeare himself, who needed some jokes beefed up in Macbeth, her debut for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
