The Shakesbeer Sessions: Twelfth Night at Willie the Boatman

Sydney's favourite pub Shakespeare company, Bar’d Work, is thrilled to announce its return with a fresh season of riotous, 90-minute adaptation of Shakespeare’s greatest hit: Twelfth Night!

Prepare for an evening of fast-paced, fun, and famously interactive theatre, where classic tales get a contemporary twist, complete with sing-a-longs and plenty of opportunities to raise a glass. Get ready to experience Shakespeare like never before – intimate, irreverent, and incredibly entertaining!

Viola, shipwrecked and believing her twin brother Sebastian to be dead, disguises herself as a man named Cesario and enters into a new world. Forget love triangles, this play is jam packed with mistaken identity, lust & letters!

Shakespeare wasn’t written for the classroom or fancy theatres. The Bard’s early plays were written and performed in Elizabethan Inn Yards. It was the ultimate in populist entertainment; accessible and understandable for all. 

★★ “Bar’d Work are demonstrating, in terrific fashion, that it doesn’t take a complete upheaval of these plays for them to be fantastically accessible for a modern audience… The audience was in stitches from start to finish.” ★★ – Laura Heuston, Theatre Travels.

What began in 2019 as a conversation between actors after a performance of ‘serious’ Shakespeare, the Bar’d Work founders wanted to return Shakespeare to its origins as live, bawdy, and energetic entertainment. 

Bringing the stories to life for modern day audiences, Bar’d Work has become a staple of the Aussie pub scene, entertaining thousands of delighted audience members with its interactive, singalong versions of Shakespeare comedies.

The company has previously sold out multiple seasons across Sydney and Melbourne, and taken Shakespeare on the road regionally around NSW and VIC.