If all the world’s a stage, why can’t the stage be a Shakespearean table top?

Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells describes the inspiration for and the development of the company’s ‘Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare’.

10 Mar 2025 17:14

Richard Watts

Performing Arts

A scene from Forced Entertainment’s ‘Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare’ at Adelaide Festival 2025. Photo: Hugo Glendinning.

“The ghost of Hamlet’s father, Claudius, is a cheese grater. I like him,” says Tim Etchells, Artistic Director of English company Forced Entertainment.

Shakespeare’s 36 plays are staged as a consecutive series of short, daily productions in Table Top Shakespeare, which is now playing the 2025 Adelaide Festival.

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Join Now Login

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's former National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts