Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton – until 16th May 2026
Review by Amanda Allen
4****
I don’t think I have ever seen such frantic energy confined to such a limited space by such a small group of people! From a dramatic musical introduction to the manic paced Hamlet finale this production didn’t stop. Being honest parts of it were a bit to fast for me, my ears and brain could not keep up with the dialogue and action at times. In trying to tell the story of ALL of Shakespeare’s works in one production the 3 person cast of Efe Agwele, Tom Pavey and Kiran Raywilliams took us on a journey through time and place and sometimes I lost my way.
I am not a huge fan of Shakespeare, like many I studied some of his works at school and have seen various performances over the years of the more popular plays. I thought this would be a good way of extending my Shakespearian experience in a fun way. Throughout the play we were constantly reminded how many of our sayings and regularly used phrases originated with the Bard. The cast took us along on the journey with lots of audience participation and humour. Directed by Adam Long who was also one of the writers this is an interesting look at the many works of Shakespeare we are all familiar with.
The reduced Shakespeare Company have excelled in making a virtue of limited means with sparce settings and minimal props, lots of costume changes and theatrical invention. The cast depicted the many characters with such a fast pace it was at times hard to keep up. Kiran Raywilliams was excellent in being both the narrator of many parts and the glue that hung the team together through out this run away performance. One of the highlights for me was his rendition of the alphabet in rap style, very clever and I am sure extremely difficult to deliver. On the downside the delivery of the Scottish play exert in a broad Glaswegian accent left me completely behind as I didn’t understand a word of it! Similarly the depiction of Titus Andronicus as a cooking show didn’t work for me either, I know we are asked to push the boundaries of live entertainment sometimes but for me this was an unnecessary stretch of my imagination.
Although this was a comedic performance there were parts where the actors were allowed to show their true talent and deliver parts of Shakespeare’s great plays straight faced and with great timing, taking us from the fast comedy to the beauty of the Bards written word showed the true scale of the talent on show before us. I don’t know how they remembered all their lines, throughout the performance the pace of delivery didn’t drop, it was a real marathon, both vocally and physically and the cast carried the audience along with them.
Whether you are a fan of Shakespeare’s works or not this is a really entertaining night out, well worth seeing, it may even spark a further interest in going to see some “real” Shakespeare plays!