EARLIER this year, the ever-inventive and multi-talented Stu McLoughlin impressed audiences at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatre with a powerful performance in the title role of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth.

Now, Stu – one of the founders of the West Country’s favourite comedy theatre company Living Spit – is back, giving another of the Bard’s tragic heroes an outing. This time it’s the Danish play, given a very Living Spit twist, taking its cue from one of Hamlet’s famous soliloquies … “O that this too too solid ‘shell’ would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew”.

Omlet, Prince of Hen-mark finds our hero rehatched, fragile and brooding, on the brink of cracking under the pressure of his own egg-sistential angst, with a supporting cast of vegetables and other foodstuffs.

What is sometimes described as the greatest play of all is retold by one man, one egg and a trolley-full of comestibles.

There are performances of Omlet, Prince of Hen-mark, at Sturminster Exchange on 7th November, Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on 12th, Bridport Arts Centre on 13th, Portland’s Royal Manor Theatre on 18th, the Marine at Lyme Regis on 19th and Chetnole village hall on 20th. The Portland and Chetnole dates are sponsored by Artsreach.

The question of suitability to play the Danish prince has preoccupied theatre makers for centuries. Scholars have long debated age, physique, gender and temperament – yet all have overlooked the perfect candidate – an egg.