The Cut Shakespeare
Chloe Salaman and Billy Colvill
as Juliet and Romeo
The Cut Shakespeare is a series of Shakespeare’s plays offering complete Shakespeare texts in a bold, readable typeface, but with the linguistically most difficult passages indicated in a fainter, bracketed font. Extracts are available below.
Ideal for reading aloud in class, workshop and full production, the complete text remains for study at leisure of both the whole play and each actor’s individual role. The series is edited by the award-winning playwright Steve Gooch, who has brought more than forty years’ experience of writing, script-editing and teaching to the texts.
Each A5 paperback volume offers two complete texts in bold type with modern punctuation. All six volumes are available at a reduced price of £8.50 each (incl. UK p&p), with discounts for multiple items.
The series has received support from the National Theatre (“an excellent scheme”); Dominic Dromgoole, formerly of Shakespeare’s Globe (“practical, sharp and serviceable”); and the Royal Shakespeare Company, with a Foreword by RSC stalwart Oliver Ford Davies, the distinguished actor of Shakespeare, whose acclaimed performance of Polonius paired brilliantly with David Tennant’s Hamlet.
Sample Extracts
The Cut Shakespeare only excises those passages which do no ‘harm’ to the story or characters, and where Shakespeare’s language is at its most impenetrable – particularly when spoken aloud and to a young audience. Sample extracts are available below in PDF format.
Twelfth Night
Much Ado About Nothing
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
Love’s Labour’s Lost
The Tempest
The Winter’s Tale
Hamlet
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Richard II
Order Direct
All Six Volumes £38.00
Six A5 paperback volumes are available. Each volume includes two plays.
Any one volume (which includes two plays) costs £8.50 including p&p (UK only):
- Comedies I (Twelfth Night + Much Ado About Nothing)
- Comedies II (A Midsummer Night’s Dream + As You Like It)
- Comedies III (The Taming of the Shrew + Love’s Labour’s Lost)
- Romances (The Tempest + The Winter’s Tale)
- Tragedies I (Hamlet + Othello)
- Tragedies II (Romeo and Juliet + Richard II)
Discounts…
— 16x Any one volume (each with two plays) costs £96.00 including p&p (UK only)
— 24x Any one volume (each with two plays) costs £145.00 including p&p (UK only)
— 32x Any one volume (each with two plays) costs £187.00 including p&p (UK only)
— 1x All six volumes (includes all twelve plays) costs £38.00 including p&p (UK only)
How to Order and Payment Options
Please send an email to Steve (steve@stevegooch.info) with details of the items you would like to order, including quantities. For example: “One copy of Love Bites, and one copy of Tragedies I”.
You can pay by PayPal or Cheque. Please click here for PayPal payments.
Please make cheques payable to R.S. Gooch, write your name and delivery address on the back of the cheque, and send to: Steve Gooch Publications, Conaways, Langham Road, Robertsbridge, East Sussex TN32 5DT.
Please allow 7-28 days for delivery. E&OE.
It’s marvellous that a writer has now undertaken this task. The way you have left the original text intact enables the director to make minor adjustments of her own. The actors found it easy to follow, and all commented on its ease, logicality and flow.
Terrie Fender, Drama School Director
The students responded so positively. They loved the pace, and seemed to master the language really well –– perhaps because there was less of it.
Lesley Davies, Thurston Community College