A Spymonkey co-production with Brighton Festival and Royal & Derngate Northampton

There are 74 onstage deaths in the works of William Shakespeare – 75 if you count the black ill-favoured fly killed in Titus Andronicus.

They range from the Roman suicides in Julius Caesar to the death fall of Prince Arthur in King John; from the carnage at the end of Hamlet to snakes in a basket in Antony & Cleopatra; from Pyramus and Thisbe to young Macduff. There are countless stabbings, plenty of severed heads, some poisonings, two mobbings and a smothering. Enorbarbus just sits in a ditch and dies from grief. And then there’s the pie that Titus serves the Queen of the Goths.

Spymonkey will perform them all – sometimes lingeringly, sometimes messily, sometimes movingly, sometimes musically, always hysterically. The four ‘seriously, outrageously, cleverly funny clowns’ (Time Magazine) will scale the peaks of sublime poetry, and plumb the depths of darkest depravity. It may even be the death of them.

Directed by Tim Crouch (I, Malvolio, An Oak Tree, Adler & Gibb) and designed by Spymonkey regular Lucy Bradridge, THE COMPLETE DEATHS will be a solemn, sombre and sublimely funny tribute to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Performed by Spymonkey: Aitor Basauri, Stephan Kreiss, Petra Massey & Toby Park
Adapted and directed by Tim Crouch
Designed by Lucy Bradridge
Lighting design by Phil Supple
Original music by Toby Park
Choreography by Theo Clinkard & Janine Fletcher
Video design by Sam Bailey
Assistant Director Lucy Skilbeck
Voice Coach Nia Lynn
Production Manager Mat Ort
Stage Manager Andy McCabe
Produced by Emily Coleman
Press & PR Shelley Bennett for YETI PR
Studio Photography John Hunter for RULER
Illustrations Chris Riddell