Peter Quince, superseded as stage-director by Pocket, insists that the mechanicals’ play remains 'completely suitable for ladies and children,' which is not entirely true of Mr. Moore’s story. Pocket proves to be a master of inventive verbal rudeness, and there is a good deal of fairy frolicking, but no one could call it anything but lighthearted. Christopher Moore has written a wonderful diversion for hard times. Even Shakespeare would have appreciated the jokes. Maybe.
... there are far better Moore 'starters' than this bizarre take on the Bard. That being said, fans of Moore and his incomparable wordplay will rejoice at having the jester Pocket of Dog Snogging...return in yet another nutty take on Shakespeare ... In the literary world of Christopher Moore, this is a harbinger of great things to come.
Moore's trademark humor is on full display with his cast of strangely lovable characters. This is Shakespeare with an edge and will not only appeal to Moore's fans but garner new ones.
It takes a certain amount of guts and wild abandon to recast a Shakespeare comedy as a hard-boiled detective story, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s master satirist Moore, whose gift for funny business apparently knows no bounds. What sets him apart from most of his fellow comic storytellers is his determination never to let the story take a back seat to the jokes. And yet, the humor flows from the story; the story isn’t dictated by the jokes. A welcome return of a fan-favorite character in a romp of a tale that will delight not only mystery buffs but also fantasy fanatics, and, of course, Bard lovers.
... amusing ... In this raucous, crass, and innuendo-filled romp, Moore once again delivers light and derivative fun. This cheeky homage will please lovers of Shakespeare and camp.
Moore’s contribution is to amp up the couplings, bawdy language, violence, and metatextual analogies between the royals, the fairies, the mechanicals, his own interloping hero, and any number of other plays by the Bard. A kicky, kinky, wildly inventive 21st-century mashup with franker language and a higher body count than Hamlet.
