English Director Stages Shakespeare Play with Sheep instead of Human Actors

Well there you are and here I am! I was beginning to worry. Glad you’re here... in time for a rousingly good mug of java and a virtual doughnut or muffin (he said sheepishly). Are you a Shakespeare fan? Seems you either are or you aren’t, eh! Well read on...

A new adaptation of the Shakespeare classic King Lear features a bizarre cast – one human and nine sheep! 24-year-old Alasdair Saksena plays the human, a director who tries to persuade his cast of sheep to perform the tragedy. ‘King Lear with Sheep’ is, needless to say, every bit as absurd and hilarious as it sounds. 

The play is the brainchild of actor Saksena, writer Missouri Williams, and producer Lucie Elven – all in their early 20s. The idea came about after Missouri, having worked on a tour of King Lear with a human cast, got sick of them. “There’s little references to sheep within the text that I think planted the idea in Missouri’s head,” Saksena said. “And so she decided to do King Lear with sheep and me. And I thought, you can’t really say no to that, can you?”

“Sheep are silent and Cordelia is silent at the beginning of the play,” Saksena remarked. “Having that silence directly confronted with animals really pinpoints the absurdity of Lear’s reaction and the absurdity of Cordelia’s unwillingness to speak at the beginning. All she needed to do was to say a few words of flattery, dishonest as they would be, and her dad could have kept the kingdom.” 

According to Saksena, working with sheep isn’t as difficult as one would imagine. “It’s the same thing as acting with people, really,” he said. “I was rehearsing with them this morning, and they do sort of respond to their names. I think because they’re so used to looking out for predators that they see your eyes and they know where you’re looking. So if you say their name, they’ll look back at you.”

“They don’t have a script, so they think everything’s improv,” Saksena said, explaining that the play is “a sort of jumble between my ideas, Missouri’s ideas, and Shakespeare’s words.” With such an unpredictable cast, each show is a leap into the unknown. 

A review in The Telegraph reveals that the sheep in the play aren’t new to show business – they have impressive resumés with previous appearances on The Apprentice, Good Morning Britain, and the title of ‘Best Cross-Bred Ewe’ at the Lambeth Country Show in 2014. “Saksena risks being upstaged at every turn by his ovine co-stars,” the review reads. 

“The sheep refuse to perform, causing the director to lash out at his silent stars, especially Cordelia. ‘Nothing will come of nothing, speak again,’ he rails. The odd bleat here and there convinces you that they have perfect comic timing.”

Not everybody has heard of sheep actors but if you are in the audience, you'll get wind of it soon enough. There will never be another ewe! And so ends my bleat for today...

See ya, eh!

Bob