"The Tempest" by Richard Lowdon
Link is active from November 15th at 22:00. Watch HERE

A salt and pepper pot for the king and queen. A vase for the prince. A matchbox for the servant. A kitchen table for a stage.
In this ‘At Home’ edition of Complete Works the dramatis personae of household objects return to a domestic setting in a unique staging directly from the performers’ homes to yours.

Originally conceived in 2015, in Complete Works six performers create condensed versions of all of the Shakespeare plays, comically and intimately retelling them, using a collection of everyday objects as stand-ins for the characters on the one metre stage of a table top.
In September 2017 Kanuti Gildi SAAL hosted 6 days of presentation of the Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare with success among audience and critics.
Forced Entertainment have long had an obsession with virtual or described performance, exploring in different ways over the years the possibilities of conjuring extraordinary scenes, images and stories using language alone. Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare explores the dynamic force of narrative in relation to Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, histories and late plays. What follows is simple and idiosyncratic, absurd and strangely compelling as, through a kind of lo-fi, home-made puppetry, the stories of the plays really do come to life in vivid miniature.

Complete Works has been performed in theatre spaces across the world as well as being webcast to thousands of international viewers, however, while a global pandemic has shut down stages everywhere, the piece finds an intimate new life by ‘coming home’. Rather than a table set against the red drapes of a theatre, the objects find their starting positions on Terry’s kitchen table or Jerry’s desk as if they’d just been taken down from the surrounding shelves and cupboards of each performers’ home.

Forced Entertainment’s Complete Works is the group’s first venture into Shakespearean territory and this ‘at home’ edition, presented over nine weeks, is a kind of quietly ambitious levelling and opening out of the plays. The project’s gently comic re-casting and re-telling of each play is also both a celebration of the stories’ power and a tribute to the durability of theatre itself.

We start our 9 weeks broadcasting with screening at the Kanuti Gildi SAAL on September 17.

Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare: At Home
PROGRAM
All plays will be performed at 10PM (22:00) East European Time (EET) / 8pm UK Time
Week 1
17.09 Macbeth by Richard Lowdon
18.09 Pericles by Cathy Naden
19.09 The Merchant of Venice by Claire Marshall
20.09 A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Jerry Killick

Week 2
24.09 Romeo and Juliet by Terry O’Connor
25.09 King John by Cathy Naden
26.09 Titus Andronicus by Robin Arthur
27.09 Much Ado About Nothing by Richard Lowdon

Week 3
01.10 Hamlet by Terry O’Connor
02.10 Loves Labour’s Lost by Robin Arthur
03.10 The Winter’s Tale by Cathy Naden
04.10 All’s Well That Ends Well by Claire Marshall

Week 4
08.10 Richard II by Terry O’Connor
09.10 Henry IV Part 1 by Jerry Killick
10.10 Henry IV Part 2 by Jerry Killick
11.10 Henry V by Claire Marshall

Week 5
15.10 Henry VI Part1 by Richard Lowdon
16.10 Henry VI Part 2 by Richard Lowdon
17.10 Henry VI Part 3 by Richard Lowdon
18.10 Richard III by Claire Marshall

Week 6
22.10 Measure for Measure by Cathy Naden
23.10 Corialanus by Jerry Killick
24.10 The Merry Wives of Windsor by Terry O’Connor
25.10 King Lear by Robin Arthur

Week 7
29.10 Twelfth Night by Jerry Killick
30.10 Cymbeline by Terry O’Connor
31.10 Julius Caesar by Robin Arthur
01.11 Antony and Cleopatra by Cathy Naden

Week 8
05.11 Two Gentlemen of Verona by Claire Marshall
06.11 Troilus and Cressida by Jerry Killick
07.11 As You Like It by Robin Arthur
08.11 Othello by Cathy Naden

Week 9
12.11 Taming of the Shrew by Claire Marshall
13.11 The Comedy of Errors by Terry O’Connor
14.11 Timon of Athens by Robin Arthur
15.11 The Tempest by Richard Lowdon