`What You Will - A Sea Dog's Tale

Sarah Clough, Simone Ellul and Chris Galea

As a retelling, aimed at a young audience, the piece opens not with the play at all, but with the very enticing, if somewhat all-too popular, concept of an Elizabethan ship’s crew who are desperately badgered by a young Will Shakespeare to take him on as a resident sailor/writer. 

Shakespeare (Chris Galea), eager to experience life at sea and draw inspiration for his plays and writing, is allowed on board and joins in the storytelling of the captain (Phil Coggins) and his crew (Sarah Clough and Simone Ellul) as they tell him the story of the Shipwreck of Illeria.

Reference: Shakespeare Out at Sea.

In response to a post A pirate’s comic retelling of Bard’s Twelfth Night strikes a chord with younger audience by Anzan Hoshin Roshi on a Google+ community on Shakespeare, I commented:

I love this... taking the titular invitation "Or What You Will" to heart! Of course it coaxes another saying out of us, doesn't it: Where there's a Will(iam), there's a way (lol).