Oxford Playhouse audiences were given a gloriously silly, relentlessly energetic dash through Shakespeare’s entire canon as the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s much-loved comedy arrived in the city.
At a glance
| Show | The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) |
| Where reviewed | Oxford Playhouse |
| Oxford run | Thursday 28 to Saturday 30 May 2026 |
| Cast seen | Efé Agwele, Woogie Jung and Tom Pavey |
| Running time | 1hr 40mins, including interval |
| Best for | Shakespeare lovers, Shakespeare sceptics and anyone after a very funny night out |
| Tour information | completeworkstour.co.uk |
We started the evening trying to count the plays. Which ones had we seen? Which ones had we read? Which ones did we know only by reputation, half-remembered school lessons or famous lines absorbed by cultural osmosis?
It did not take long to abandon the exercise. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is not the sort of show that lets you sit quietly with a mental checklist. It grabs the canon by the collar, shakes it vigorously and turns the whole thing into a 100-minute comic sprint.
Three actors. Thirty-seven plays. One evening. In less confident hands, that could sound like a schoolroom dare. Here, it is sheer joy.
A fast, daft and very clever Shakespeare send-up
The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s classic comedy arrived at Oxford Playhouse as part of its UK tour, presented by The Theatre Chipping Norton and Selladoor Worldwide.
The premise is simple: squeeze all of Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and histories into one evening, then keep going faster until the whole thing threatens to fall apart. The pleasure comes from the fact that it never does.
The show is chaotic by design, but the craft underneath is precise. Jokes arrive at speed, props appear and vanish, wigs do a lot of heavy lifting, and the actors switch tone, character and costume with barely a pause for breath.
The opening joke set the mood. Woogie Jung explained that the minimalist set looked as though it had been “dug out of a skip at the Royal Opera House”, and from that point on the laughter barely stopped.
The cast make the chaos look effortless
Efé Agwele, Woogie Jung and Tom Pavey are magnificent. The pace they maintain is remarkable, particularly in a production that depends so heavily on comic timing, physical precision and the ability to look completely unbothered while everything around them appears to be collapsing.
What makes the trio so enjoyable is that they do not simply race through the material. They play with the audience’s expectations of Shakespeare: the reverence, the dread, the half-knowledge, the famous speeches, the bits people pretend to remember better than they do.
There is a lovely generosity in the way the production treats both Shakespeare fans and Shakespeare avoiders. If you know the plays, there are jokes to catch. If you do not, there is still more than enough absurdity, speed and theatrical mischief to enjoy.
Modern twists and proper belly laughs
Part of the fun is trying to guess how each play will be mangled next. The evening delivers a bouncing skull, a step-ladder balcony scene, a vape, a cooking tutorial and a steady stream of gleefully ridiculous shortcuts through the Bard’s greatest hits.
Most of Shakespeare’s works are crammed into the first act, with the production finding clever ways to collapse whole categories of plays into single comic ideas. The histories become a sporting scramble. The tragedies are stripped for parts. The comedies are exposed for their repeated disguises, misunderstandings and romantic confusion.
It is knowingly silly, but never lazy. The humour works because the show understands Shakespeare well enough to take him apart properly.
Hamlet takes over the second half
After the interval, Hamlet takes centre stage, and rightly so. The second act gives the production more space to stretch its audience participation and build one joke until it becomes something close to comic endurance theatre.
Two audience members were brought on stage while the rest of the theatre was enlisted to help recreate Ophelia’s descent into madness. Just when the sequence seemed to have reached its natural end, the cast did it again, then faster, then faster still, and finally backwards.
It was wonderfully ridiculous and genuinely impressive. The laughter came first, but underneath it was the thrill of watching performers who know exactly how far they can push a scene before snapping it back into shape.
Verdict
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is a rollercoaster in the best sense: quick, loud, breathless and impossible to overthink once it gets going.
It is not a reverent night with Shakespeare. It is much better than that. It is a reminder that these plays have survived not because they belong behind glass, but because they can still be pulled about, joked with, argued over and made joyfully ridiculous in front of a live audience.
If you are looking for a fun evening out, this is absolutely worth seeing on tour.
Full UK tour dates
| Dates | Venue | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 18 to Saturday 28 February 2026 | The Theatre | Chipping Norton |
| Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 March 2026 | The Haymarket Theatre | Basingstoke |
| Tuesday 10 March 2026 | The Swan Theatre | Worcester |
| Wednesday 11 March 2026 | Epsom Playhouse | Epsom |
| Friday 13 to Saturday 14 March 2026 | Belgrade Theatre | Coventry |
| Tuesday 17 March 2026 | Lawrence Batley Theatre | Huddersfield |
| Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 March 2026 | Wiltshire Creative, Salisbury Playhouse | Salisbury |
| Tuesday 24 to Saturday 28 March 2026 | Bristol Old Vic | Bristol |
| Monday 30 March to Thursday 2 April 2026 | Yvonne Arnaud Theatre | Guildford |
| Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 April 2026 | Lichfield Garrick Theatre | Lichfield |
| Wednesday 15 to Saturday 18 April 2026 | Mayflower Studios, Studio 1 | Southampton |
| Tuesday 21 to Saturday 25 April 2026 | Lighthouse Theatre | Poole |
| Monday 27 to Wednesday 29 April 2026 | Beam | Hertford |
| Thursday 30 April to Friday 1 May 2026 | Quarry Theatre | Bedford |
| Saturday 2 May 2026 | Trinity Theatre | Tunbridge Wells |
| Tuesday 5 to Wednesday 6 May 2026 | Newbury Corn Exchange | Newbury |
| Saturday 9 May 2026 | Tacchi Morris Arts Centre | Taunton |
| Tuesday 12 to Wednesday 13 May 2026 | Exeter Northcott Theatre | Exeter |
| Thursday 14 to Saturday 16 May 2026 | Royal & Derngate Theatres | Northampton |
| Tuesday 19 to Saturday 23 May 2026 | Bolton Octagon | Bolton |
| Monday 25 to Wednesday 27 May 2026 | Watford Palace Theatre | Watford |
| Thursday 28 to Saturday 30 May 2026 | Oxford Playhouse | Oxford |
| Tuesday 2 to Saturday 6 June 2026 | New Wolsey Theatre | Ipswich |
| Tuesday 9 to Saturday 13 June 2026 | Theatre Royal | Bury St Edmunds |
| Tuesday 16 to Thursday 18 June 2026 | Theatre by the Lake | Keswick |
| Friday 19 to Saturday 20 June 2026 | Northern Stage | Newcastle |
| Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 June 2026 | Cast | Doncaster |
| Thursday 25 to Saturday 27 June 2026 | Theatre Royal | Wakefield |
| Tuesday 7 to Saturday 11 July 2026 | Theatre Royal | York |
For full tour information and ticket links, visit completeworkstour.co.uk.
