Ibsen award-winning Forced Entertainment bring their take on Shakespeare to the Opera House
World-renowned, Ibsen award-winning UK company Forced Entertainment brings its acclaimed production, Table Top Shakespeare, to Sydney for the first time this September – a genuinely accessible, laugh-out-loud way into the Bard for anyone who finds his works intimidating or a slog at school. Suitable for ages 14 and up.
With exactly one month until opening, the Sydney Opera House is counting down to the Sydney premiere of Table Top Shakespeare, presented by internationally acclaimed ensemble Forced Entertainment – the company The Guardian has called “Britain’s most brilliant experimental theatre company” and The Times says is “confounding conventions and exploding audience expectations.”
Six performers take on the whole of Shakespeare’s canon using nothing but everyday household objects – a vase becomes a prince, a jar becomes Juliet, a Dettol bottle plays her nurse, and salt and pepper shakers rule an entire kingdom. Narrated live and entirely from memory, with no fixed script, each retelling strips Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and histories back to their essential drama, wit and plot – no prior knowledge of the plays required.
It’s a genuinely different way in for audiences who find Shakespeare’s language intimidating or who haven’t engaged with his work since school, as well as a fresh, funny lens for seasoned theatre-lovers. Forty years into a career built on pulling apart theatrical convention, this marks Forced Entertainment’s first-time tackling Shakespeare – and their first time performing them in Sydney.
Table Top Shakespeare: Selected Works is presented as double bills across the season – two plays per evening over one week, covering comedies, tragedies and histories including Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
KEY POINTS:
- Interview availability with Artistic Director Tim Etchells
Interview availability with performers Robin Arthur, Jerry Killick, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor. - Background material on the production and international critical reception.
- Visual, quotable, easily-shared content is available – from “Shakespeare’s plays summarised as household objects” round-ups to production imagery (photography by Hugo Glendinning).
- Table Top Shakespeare lands as reading engagement among Australian teens continues to decline nationally, and as Shakespeare remains a compulsory text under the new NSW HSC English syllabus. This season also includes dedicated performances for schools, making this a timely option for English teachers as Shakespeare remains compulsory content under the new NSW HSC syllabus.
- These selected works offer an unusually timely, low-pressure entry point into material many students and adults alike find difficult to access on the page.
Season Details
Venue: Studio|Â Sydney Opera House
Date: 22 – 27 Sept 2026
For more information click HERE
