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’.
A scene from Forced Entertainment's 'Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare' at Adelaide Festival 2025.

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

He is describing the company’s production Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, first staged in 2015, in which honed down versions of the Bard’s stories are acted out by a series of solo performers and a cast of common domestic items.

Unlock Padlock Icon

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's 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 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts