Elizabethan

thespace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53)

Renaissance music fan David William Hughes plays our lute-wielding host Tobias Bacon in this gently amusing celebration of the songs of Elizabethan England, including some numbers by that upcoming young lyricist William Shakespeare.

The hapless Bacon charts the choppy waters of his love life from unrequited crush to sexual education and full-blown affair, finding ample material to express his desires and frustrations in his yearning tenor voice. All the songs in the show were written between 1580 and 1620 but contain evergreen resonances.

Along the way, there is some light participation from audience members inhabiting characters/ wearing wigs with varying degrees of commitment for Hughes to play off in jovial, jesting manner.

The songs are generally airy comical affairs performed with stylised expression, though one memorable ditty about

dildos is laden with Elizabethan innuendo and Bacon’s opening ode comparing the shared effects of tobacco and love starts out in period minstrel mode, before transforming into what sounds more like an indie number by Oasis – who once penned their own twist on this perennial theme called Cigarettes and Alcohol. Same sentiments, different times.

Until 25 August. Today 1:05pm.