IT sounds like every student's dream and every scholar's nightmare: all 37 of Shakespeare's plays performed in 97 minutes. Forget the boring bits, forget sustained metaphor, the Reduced Shakespeare Company has time for neither as the actors hurtle through The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Abridged) delivering, among other interpretations, Othello in rap and Titus Andronicus as a galloping gourmet.
According to Chris Andrew Mellon, one of the three-strong cast of the RSC (that's the slimline RSC rather than the Stratford-on-Avon one), the show is in perfect agreement with Shakespeare's original intentions.
"Shakespeare wrote for the masses; if he were alive today he'd be writing for television. What we've done is adapt Shakespeare for the MTV generation - we've taken all the soundbites, left out the turgid bits, kept in the sex and violence."
As if suddenly aware of the mass shudder of the nation's scholars, Mellon quickly adds: "Ah no, I think it's very obvious in the show that we have the greatest respect for Shakespeare. The show merely opens up his work to more people and is a lot of fun. We do get some purists disapproving but it usually only takes five minutes before they're laughing with the rest."
One Shakespeare scholar, Prof Nicholas Grene, head of the English Department in Trinity, is no such snooty purist: "I think the RSC are absolutely wonderful. Although their interpretation of Shakespeare is certainly a cheeky one, it is amazingly clever and can do no possible harm. Those with a love and knowledge of Shakespeare's work will only enjoy the show more. For example, anyone who knows the cooking they get up to in Titus Andronicus is going to appreciate the RSC's presentation of that play as a cookery show."
With two further shows, The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (Abridged) and The Complete History Of America: 500 Years In 600 Seconds, on tour in Britain and the US respectively, what's next for the RSC treatment?
"Well, the possibilities are endless. We've thought about Jane Austen or ...
I interrupt to suggest Ulysses. "Oh yes, let me see, we could start off `Jimmy Joyce's Epic...'."