‘Should I have done a bit of revision first?’ a small, nervous voice inside me asked as I took my seat at The Theatre Chipping Norton last night for The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged).
‘what a hoot we had at this riotous show’
The ‘S’ word in the title does seem to conjure up a slight feeling of dread in a lot of us, which is probably precisely why Selladoor Worldwide is staging this rebooted and reimagined production of the West End classic – to lighten up the Bard’s work and have fun with it. And what a hoot we had at this riotous show.
Where to start? Well, ‘(abridged)’ is the key word here as the cast; Efe Agwele, Woogie Jung and Kiran Raywilliams switching roles, clothes and wigs at a mesmerising pace. For example, in one three-minute skit they hurtle through all 14 of Shakespeare’s comedy plays to emphasise how the same plot devices are wheeled out again and again, making them ripe for the cast to gleefully poke fun at.
There are also repeated comical stabbings galore as so many characters gruesomely dispense with each other. Absurd Shakespeare storylines receive even more absurd but clever interpretations: all the history plays as one short football match anyone?
‘Titus Andronicus as a cookery programme had us roaring with laughter’
Other more famous plays are treated to an entire sketch of their own, but again it’s all intelligently bonkers: Titus Andronicus as a cookery programme had us roaring with laughter.
The cast also frequently step out of Shakespeare’s characters to play people who are in turn bored, baffled, intrigued by, and in love with, the plays they are sending up, and thereby mirroring how most of the audience probably feels about Shakespeare’s huge catalogue of plays.
‘the cast switch roles, clothes and wigs at a mesmerising pace’
The second half is sensibly devoted to the most famous play by, well, anyone ever: Hamlet. We are treated to four performances of Hamlet – the final one is so mind-bending my head hurt. The audacious rabble on stage even dare to question the need for the existence of that most famous soliloquy ‘To be or not to be…’. How meta is that?!
Irreverent, fresh and fun. And no revision required. You should go!
EDWARD BLISS
The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged) runs at The Theatre Chipping Norton until Saturday Feb 28. Book here: https://www.chippingnortontheatre.com/events/the-complete-works-of-shakespeare-abridged
