New Shakespear to feature all 74 of the Bard's on-stage deaths in one show

To mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death a new theatre production will feature all 74 of the Bard's on-stage deaths in one two-hour show.
Director Tim Crouch has teamed up with comedy company Spymonkey to create The Complete Deaths - featuring every death from the farcical to the tragic in the playwright's collection.
In total there are 74 on-stage deaths in the works of Shakespeare, from the Roman suicides in Julius Caesar and the asp clutched to Cleopatra's bosom to the bloody ending of Hamlet and the brutal murder of young Macduff.

Throughout Shakespeare's works there are stabbings beyond counting, many severed heads, some poisonings, two mobbings and one smothering.
In Anthony and Cleopatra Enorbarbus just sits in a ditch and dies from grief and there's the pie Titus serves the Queen of the Goths - and all of hem will feature in The Complete Deaths.


The show, which opens in May 2016 at Northampton Royal and Derngate Theatre before moving to Brighton, is set to be one of a number of events held to mark the playwright's death.
Mr Crouch told The Times: 'The first history plays are quite rudimentary in hoe to snuff out a life but he has a more sophisticated means of killing people as the plays go on. I think he gets more confident in his killing means.

'There is some extraordinarily exquisite stuff; the smothering of Desdemona, Cleopatra putting an asp to her breast, Brutus asking each of the men in Julius Caesar if they will hold a sword while he runs on to it.'
Mr Crouch added Shakespeare's death are relevant today.
He said: 'It feels pretty Shakespearean in the modern world with beheadings and random acts of violence.