The Stratford Festival doesn’t usually do remounts but, for Antoni Cimolino’s last season, he gets to do whatever he wants and apparently that means bringing back a greatest hits of sorts when it comes to musical programming. Alongside a revisiting of perennial favourite Guys & Dolls (last done in 2017 with the same director and a different cast), the outgoing Artistic Director has programmed a return of Something Rotten!, a smash hit from the 2024 season remounted directly with an almost identical cast.

I reviewed the show last time with a fairly harsh eye to the wild lightness of the material. With a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell that condenses to a simple but weird elevator pitch: “A rival playwright tries to outmaneuver Shakespeare with the help of Nostradamus but faces ruin when he prioritizes a misinterpreted prophecy over better artistic instincts”, Something Rotten! is high on hijinks, low on story and character development. It hinges entirely on a ridiculous misunderstanding and relies relentlessly on references, innuendo, and puns. It is perhaps the dumbest musical I’ve ever seen. What it is not, and maybe I dismissed this too easily last time, is badly structured, lazily written, or simplistic. It’s not bad, it’s just stupid. On purpose. Some people really love stupid.

There’s a joyful leaning in to Something Rotten! that’s hard to resist. It’s maximum everything- bold costumes, a big chorus, strong vocals, the loudest you’ve ever heard a Stratford band. Director Donna Feore is famous for her elaborate dance numbers- there are at least five sequences here bigger than the one big showstopper in a more normal show. There’s basically nothing in the way of personal ballads or intimate scenes. At Something Rotten!, it’s always go time; the whole show is the eleven o’clock number.

The remounted production is cast to perfection with an unhinged star turn from Mark Uhre and a fabulous against-type deployment of the usually somewhat understated Jeff Lillico. Henry Firmston gives a lovely, sincere performance as would-be Romeo Nigel and the great Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane makes a meal of the sweet ingenue character. The chorus is always a highlight of Stratford’s musical fare and they’re showcased here better than ever. It was a thrill to see understudy Alex Kelly in for Dan Chameroy in the ridiculous audience-favourite role of Nostradamus, proving the incredible bench depth waiting behind the festival’s perhaps a bit over-used go-tos. I love high-effort theatre and this cast is working their asses off every second aboard this high octane nonsense train.

There’s not much to critique in Feore’s production. The all-in seriousness with which every artist involved takes to their task here is what makes the dissonance of the piece work. If you hate the jokes, it just is what it is (I’ll admit I kinda hate the jokes; this piece just wasn’t written for me) but you can’t argue with the intensity of the spectacle. Something Rotten! is stupid but by god does this group commit to the bit.