The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) (Applause Books)

To anyone, this movie is flat out hilarious. Shakespeare has never been interpreted as a rap song, or as a cooking show, and I know nobody has ever attempted to combine all 12 of Shakespeare's comedies into one. These men have successfully done it, and in such a way that I'm laughing everytime i see it again. The book, however, is incomplete without the pictures to go along with it. The funny parts arnt focused on the words as much as the presentation it's given in. If you dont have the video, get it. It is worth every cent. If you have the video, this book is good as well. Not only can you use it as a reference to see what they were talking about, but the guys have added notes onto every page, just as funny as the material it's being referenced to. So go, get the movie, buy the book, and get ready to enjoy Shakespeare like you never have before.

Five stars for the book itself, which is a hilarious sendup of Shakespeare. There is a relatively minor but annoying problem with the Kindle edition, though.The book has lots of footnotes (funny ones, written in a mock-erudite, pseudo-scholarly style). For some reason, though, about 1/8 of the footnotes have a problem of some sort. Sometimes the text points to the wrong footnote and/or the "right" one is apparently omitted altogether. Some of the footnotes are multi-paragraph. The Kindle, for some reason, puts these on multiple pages. Which is OK, but sometimes the additional paragraphs are missing. For example, Footnote 68 purports to reveal new scholarship on the "Et tu, Brute" line: "Jess' research... indicated that the full dialogue between Caesar and Brutus went something like this:"But that's the entirety of the Kindle footnote - no dialogue appears on that page, and Next Page goes to Footnote 69.

I found this play to be entertaining except for a few unnecessary elements as the sexual and bi-sexual joking and the several times that the actors barf on the audience. As a Shakespearian parody there is a plethora of material to work with so I found those antics to be unnecessary. Having the entire cast be males who play both the male and female roles as the way it was done in Shakespearian times is a great idea and makes for some truly funny scenes. The ending is a bit weak as it is a fast replay of the Hamlet parody just performed. I would have liked the play to continue with yet another parody or a recap of all the parodies combined. The one possible set back with performing the play is that the audience does have to be familiar with the works of the bard in order to truly appreciate the fun and humor in this play..

I highly recommend this play. It's hard to say whether the revised version is better than the original, but they're both a little dated now, anyway. I might recommend the original script over this one, but they're both very good.

I am a high school drama teacher, and we bought copies of the Compleat Works of William Shakespeare Abridged for classroom use. They have been delightful to use, and perfectly correllating with the Reduced Shakespeare Company DVD that we have enjoyed in the past. The best part of all is how the kids retain the recognition of lines and scenes, even when we are viewing or reading other versions of his works. They love getting in front of the class and working up these zany parodies of the classics. I rate it 5 out of 5!!

This is one of the most clever, zany, and madcap things ever written for the stage. It's not only fun to watch, it's just as enjoyable to read. There are guaranteed laugh-out-loud moments, for both fans of the bard and those who struggled to understand him in high school English classes. If you're not a fan of Shakespeare, there are definitely jokes and references you will miss, but there's enough ingenious, slapstick humor to appeal to readers with a variety of feelings about Shakespeare.

My daughter asked for it as a gift and it was perfect. Beautiful binding gold on pages and pictures. Reasonably priced and everything she was looking for from his collection of works. Thanks so much

I was looking for scenes to do for a class, but got so engrossed in the reading I forgot about the class. Definitely a keeper, on a ten scale at least a fifteen.

Brilliant. Performed in this. Use this updated version rather than the older version that's still available. Just sublime. Audience doesn't have to know much, if any, Shakespeare to enjoy it. Standing ovations and hugely positive comments - if you follow the script, you can't go wrong. Three guys do all the plays and parts in the complete works. Some minor ad-libbing required and some audience interaction and direct participation. Some audiences more difficult to convince to come up on stage than others, but the most they have to do is run back and forth stage left to right, or scream on cue. Couldn't recommend this script highly enough.

I bought this because I was in a production of it with my local theatre group. It was hilarious, went down a storm. The material is brilliant, irreverent without being offensive to The Bard.

Prompt delivery, brilliantly funny play with entertaining accompanying notes, bargain price! Very pleased!! :)

Brilliantly funny and very clever, perfect for budding Shakespeare fans

Arrived in excellent conditioning and contains the entire script but also backstory and extra information of the theatre company. Would highly recommend