The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare(Abridged)

                                                               

What a frantic evening ! Three actors performed all thirty seven of Shakespeare's plays in one hundred minutes. No mean feat ! I had wondered before the start how all Shakespeare's works could be covered in so little time !

The set was basic and consisted of a screened area with a poster of Shakespeare, an easel with a photo of Shakespeare and a table and trunk. Before the actual play started there was a puppet show then a commentator set the scene in a prologue.

The three actors were truly magnificent ! Adam Webster, Darryl Crawley and Luke Eversley between them played 43 parts ! Duke, Kings, males, females, witch, banker, and a myriad of well known names eg Caesar, Romeo, Juliet, Prince Hal, Cleopatra etc were all played with tremendous skill and energy by the actors. All three were on stage constantly with so many words to learn and I suspect, some improvisation. Most of the script consisted of just a few, often well recognised lines from a play.

The pace was fast and furious throughout with much “slapstick” style comedy. If anything the play was over acted and exaggerated which only added to the comedy. The central aisle was used to great effect adding to the sense of speed and chaos !

Every costume change was done at speed and mostly on stage. Just the change of a hat or a wig served to change a character sufficiently to be recognised. A challenge for Sara Knight who was in charge of costumes.

There were so many high spots, but for me probably the pairing of Romeo ( Adam) and Juliet ( Luke), Hamlet (Darryl) and the Ghost. (Luke) stood out.

At the very end, Hamlet was performed backwards and at a whirlwind pace

The audience was invited, indeed expected, to participate a number of times during the evening and responded eagerly and enthusiastically.

Lighting and sound ( Joe Fawcett and Natalie Pimm) were at good levels and appropriate.

Director Malcolm Hollister did a fantastic job in bringing this play to stage and enticing the very best from this small but highly talented cast.

The audience were very appreciative and gave an almost standing ovation at the end. Many of us were quite exhausted just watching the action on stage !

I enjoyed this immensely and it was certainly one of the funniest productions which I have seen.

Many congratulations to everyone involved in any way

 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.