"Thirty-seven plays. Three actors. Ninety-seven minutes" runs the tag line, and this combination of slapstick, silliness and Shakespeare has been packing them in around the world for nearly 30 years.

It's not hard to see why: the concept of three performers giving an audience a crash course in the Bard is an irresistible one and while there's plenty of good material, the concept is elastic enough to allow for individual tailoring of the script to actors' talents, so no two productions are identical.

This production, directed by the head of studies at the Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art, James Scott, and featuring him and two of his alumni, Brendan Kelly and Ryan Pemberton, is performed in the intimate space of the CADA Theatre in Fyshwick. While on opening night there were a few rough edges and imperfections, it was a lot of fun.

The three actors play "themselves" – Scott as a pedantic scholar/thespian, Kelly as a petulant exhibitionist with a bizarre penchant for stage vomiting and Pemberton as a neurotic who at one point is left alone trying desperately to keep the audience amused.

At times it felt a little more could have been made of these personae, both individually and collectively – a little more "bigness" in the performances would have been welcome and the actors could draw more on their obvious rapport to give the proceedings even more humour.

When they get down to the business of the plays, there's plenty of variety, with the highlights including Othello presented as a ludicrous white-boy rap, Titus Andronicus as a cannibalistic cooking show, and a potted burlesque of Romeo and Juliet with the actors changing voice and costume frequently to play various characters. (This repeats itself on an even bigger scale in the second half, which is devoted entirely to Hamlet.)

A few segments on opening night didn't flow quite as well as they should, like the epic all-in-one treatment of the comedies, which could have used a faster pace to play up the ever-increasing absurdities of the character and story complications.

But quibbles aside, the production offers plenty of laughs and entertainment, whatever your level of familiarity with Shakespeare (unless you're a humourless purist, but who needs those?). Be warned: there is some audience participation involved. But it's all in good fun. And, after all, as the Bard himself said, all the world's a stage.