There is much ado about Shakespeare this autumn with two very different takes on the words of Will.

Shakespeare Live will be bringing the Bard, as you like it, to Swindon in a cocktail of bewitchery called This Rough Magic or what you will.

The theatre company that specialises in performing traditional Shakespeare in the open air, during the long hot summer evenings, have swapped their stately home gardens for a tour of local theatres.

Fresh from their summer success with The Merry Wives of Windsor the actors were invited by the Royal Shakespeare Company to perform, This Rough Magic, in The Dell Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon, before embarking on their Wiltshire tour.

This Rough Magic is a collection of scenes from various plays all connected by magic, witchcraft or ghosts. It explores the themes of the occult and is introduced by Prospero from The Tempest. The show is a mix of comedy, tragedy and philosophy and is performed at the Swindon Arts Centre, Devizes Road, in Old Town on Tuesday, October 2. Tickets to see the Swindon show are £11, and £10 concessions from 01793 524481 or for more details visit www.shakespearelive.com.

The following day it will be the turn of Super Hamlet aka Edward Edalia Day to recreate a fast-paced, one-man version of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Edward has set about re-writing Hamlet using only quotes from video games. His ideas include singing ghosts, philosophical zombie shootouts and an epic boss battle between a Samurai sword-wielding Ophelia and a giant mechanical beast.

The slam poet said: “Hamlet is about a boy struggling to cope with death, video games are a medium where you die a million times but never truly die.’’

The show combines classical text with modern poetry and dissects the ideas of privilege, gender and mortality. Super Hamlet is at the Richard Jefferies Museum, Coate Water, Swindon on Wednesday, October 3 and tickets are £8. For more detail visit www.edwardday.co.uk - Flicky Harrison