The Complete World of Sports (abridged)

Synopsis

The original "bad boys of abridgement" are back in the UK following a highly successful run in New York and a sell-out US tour of The Complete World of Sports (abridged). In this merciless but affectionate satire, The Reduced Shakespeare Company canter through the entire history of athletic competition in a marathon of madness and mayhem that sees the world's great sporting events shrunk down to theatrical size. The result is a tour-de-force comedy that will delight every sports and non-sports fan in the family. Every sport ever played on every continent in the entire history of the world in under two hours! Let the games begin!

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 19 July 2012

The Reduced Shakespeare Company is back in town with a show for the Olympics that might save you the trouble of going to see the games themselves.

Actually, it's a sporting bonanza set up as a television show with three goofy guys -- Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor and Matt Rippy - going through the slow-motions of a bunch of no-hopers on track, golf course and baseball field.

There are one or two diversions into cricket and soccer, but these are not all that convincing. And, curiously for a show that is supposedly topical, there are no references to the security scares that have erupted in the past few days, and no real hint of a drugs scandal.

The last Olympic Games in London were played out in a sweltering heat; these new ones are likely to be drenched in rain, but there's no sense of that in this sunny, funny show, which embraces the audience in good humour and makes you feel good about not being all that fit.

Most of the sports referred to ...

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