Review: Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, Revised at Ludlow Arts Festival

A touring American theatre group, the RSC specialises in breaking the Bard down into bite-size chunks that are accessible to all.

In their performance of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, Revised, at the Ludlow Arts Festival, the group covered all 37 of his works in 97 minutes.

It might sound crazy – or impossible – but somehow they manage it.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company compressed Romeo & Juliet into 12 minutes, and still managed to use actual lines from the work and make sure the story made sense.

Titus Andronicus became a 'Gory Gourmet' cooking programme, Othello morphed into a rap song and all the history plays turned into a game of American Football – it might sound bizarre, but it worked and, somehow, the gist of the plays remained intact.

Though the three performers, Gary Fannin, Matthew Pearson and Ben Stratton, have clearly studied hard to learn pages and pages of the Bard's work, the real strength of the show was that it felt improvised.

All three really worked with the audience of all age groups, making it feel like the show was a complete one-off and spontaneous enough that the mad energy they inject into the performance wasn't staged at all.

If anyone is struggling to get their children engaged in literature, this show would be highly recommended as a way to make reading Shakespeare fun.

This was a fantastic, energetic family show, which genuinely had something for everyone.

Sophie Madden