the answer

All the time everyone is performing in some way or another – at work, socially everything.

The whole world is a stage, theatre is a universal

Life’s only a pretence anyway, and it doesn’t really matter that much because other things will carry on after the curtain falls

Not the type of conversation you would usually have with a bedouin, but we were a little tipsy…./

It takes great skill to be able to blur the boundries

/…he was just happy to have a drinking companion


We don’t decide who we are. We are simply actors reading a script.

I’m an unashamed blagguese, from entrance in to festivals to free five star hotel wine and dine, I’ve done it all… /

I am afraid you are miguided

/ …free.

Just thoughts sparked by reading

So we are actors in the stage of life

I’m afraid I cant give you a definite yes or no answer …/

I have seen players upon the theatre square and have found great stories told in the London vaults

/…about whether I agree with it

We each take part and act as audience to one another.

You can meet a person a hundred times and never get to see
their true self

Well, I am not too sure about that, but I do definitely agree that “men and women (are) merely players” – the story involving an ex-boyfriend is far too long and boring to relate

He’s just being a bully but he will get his pay back at a later date…

There is no rehearsal for life, and that we are merely pushed out there without our lines

Everyone must play their part or the show can’t go on.

My life is a constant performance for my amusement

I went to a rabbit show once, I was about seven and it was in a church hall…/

I would definately say life came in stages
Ones of love and ones of rages,

/… you had to pay about 20p to go in (a tidy sum back then – enough for four packets of rainbow drops) …/

It is also a double live album by Canadian band Rush, released in 1976.

/…and all those bunnies were hating the limelight, some of them had yellow teeth and I had to leave.

Certainly all the men and women are merely players, and going by the amount of time I spend in this theatre I wouldn’t find it shocking

Life would be very dull without different parts to play and dramas to face.

Ack, I don’t know. I know that I feel like I’m playing a role a lot of
the time,

I think it’s pretty self-explanatory really.

Backstage dramas in the private worlds of many,

If I’m bored I have a horrible tendancy to play up to the security cameras

All the world is a stage because nowadays you can have most things As You Like It.

Every act is political

It has a beginning, middle and end with plenty of comedy and tragedy!

What is that sign I’m meant to be looking for? it looks like a goal post but I don’t think it is one, or it looks like a bridge. but the flower?…/

I always enjoy pawning off my bad moments as bad acting rather than really me!

I’m sure also that we go through many more acts than just seven ages – I think I have been through seven already!

/…What’s the significance of the flower?

I think its more of an adventure playground. but I do think there are some interesting characters

People see themselves as stars in the drama of their own lives.

I am sleepy and surveyors are coming to burrow about in my shower and it makes me cross.

One thing’s for sure – i’ll always play the pint sized characters.

The roles we play are often outside of our control, and perhaps this is what has happened to your friend Jenny?

My great Aunt Mimi once heard that famous “All the World’s a Stage” speech and though she wasn’t much of a Shakespeare fan it really resonated with her…/

I’m not sure I do. It’s a little bit too formulaic.

/… She asked me about it years and years ago and I wrote out the whole monologue for her and she had it on her fridge until she died.

Who am I to argue with Shakespeare?

Events around me seem to be a repeat showing of an earlier episode.

Everything you see around you tells a story!

The play is something they’ve invented, or just their real life.

If you don’t act on things the world would not go around

I love seeing others acting but prefer not to myself.

Do you act upon the worlds stage?

Everyone has a story to tell, and they should also listen to the stories of others.

Hope your friend Jenny turns up soon… is she a rabbit? must be difficult to usher when you’re so low to the ground.

The world is in change, man is an acting and looking person, himself seeing but also seen

One of my friends once tried to slump against a wall and sink to the ground in misery as we have seen done of stage. She said she just felt silly and hurt her knees. So maybe, on my stage there will be none of that nonsense.

Conversely, we are an audience, and can watch the world as a stage if viewed in the right way.

No-one will determine the ending of your play but you – and there are many different endings!

Of course the world is a stage, and we are all played out before we begin, but there it is, and why not enjoy?

The world is a stage if you want it to be

The easiest option of course is to observe others participating but you know that you will get so much more out of it if you take part yourself

A mixture of players and watchers with no-one quite sure which is which

I would rather be on the stage than watching from the audience.

My mother’s waters broke for my arrival at the theatre in the interval of a Joe Orton play…/

The infant is a constant marvel.

/…but the St John Ambulance told them they had plenty of time so they watched the second half.

Given that we exist in the world we are unable to see behind it.

You can change roles as much as you like as well… and the set design is amazing.

I dont think what we say and do is a reflection of who we are

If all the world is a stage, and we find ourselves in the middle of this playful flux, then how do we know what to do?

I am such a realist though not quite as mournful, perhaps as I am further away from the seventh age.

One of our company had the dim idea of stealing a traffic cone. The rest of us were not very amused.

Perhaps we should be paying more attention to what goes on behind the scenes.

The majority of people act like they’re the centre of attention

You wouldn’t like me if you knew me, he shouldnt love me, he’ll get hurt, because that’s what I do

Now to your question, indeed I think I must agree

Isn’t it more exciting when drama just creeps up on you

Stages of life – hmm?

The world is a place to hide from

What would the purpose of Halle Berry crying like a little child be if it wasn’t broadcast at all?

That’s what it feels like, like kissing someone but not actually tasting them

I hope the tale suits you – for if not, there is no point to these words.

Too right “all the world’s a stage”, and I’d like to get to know the bloke who mans the trap door.

We all act a bit every day don’t we???

It might open you to more interesting life experiences.

This is tricky. Some things have happened to me, and I later thought they must have been meant to be. But I can’t believe that if i do something spontaneously, on a whim, that it had always been written in my life-map.

performativity. it’s the buzzword of the late ‘90s early ‘00s. as
epitomised by the phrase ‘i thee wed’.

I’d rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

The world maybe a stage to some, a novel to others,

Our natural sense of adventure drives us to seek out new audiences, explore and discover. if it wasn’t, we’d all sit in our pants and watch Lovejoy.

We are performative creatures, with audience features.

All the world’s a musical!

But I work in theatre so I am probably obsessed.

I’m big into mountains at the moment

Time is precious but worth spending on him

When I was little the world was certainly a stage. I was obsessed with the idea that my mum and dad were always performing…/

Much like shadows, meanings change as you look at them from different angles.

/…and used to creep to the top of the stairs late at night in my pyjamas, listening to my mum and dad’s hushed tones in the kitchen, talking about the day’s events.

Just think of all the political scandals that go on plus the Italian football malarkey

They, like Jenny Blenheim, seem to have disappeared.

Someone else will be doing the same but with oneself as the chorus

Even on your own you can perform for the viewer within you.

I guess there is a ring of truth to the idea

Glide off stage right at death with our head’s held high, we hope !

No wonder London never looks finished.

I don't think I could have put it better myself.

A strange busker outside a museum in France leaving his odd collection of props in a pile and wandering off then museum punters thought it was an outside sculpture and started walking around it stroking their chins.

All the world is a stage, you can even buy an ice cream in the interval.

They have their exits and their entrances;

All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.

I am not really sure that I would classify the world as a stage

I play a son, husband, father, manager and friend most often

Perhaps this is something that requires a longer, discussion

It’s a bit like the chicken and the egg I suppose.

It is a level space, prepared for surprise entrances and exits by a world cast with varying and baffling intents

Before I go to work I limber up for my time on ‘the boards of life’ as ‘office Tom’

If ‘all the world’s a stage’ then where is the audience ?

All the world’s a stage, damn straight. What else could it be?

I don't act I don't think but probably used to when I was younger.

If ‘all the world’s a stage’ I guess that means that we must all be actors

Surely this is a question of PHD proportions?!

We’re all ‘acting’ our ways through life influenced mainly by what other people think

If everybody in the world is an actor, then who are we performing for?

I think the world is most probably your oyster. Thats what i've heard anyway

Yes it is and thats the way i like it.

Therefore there’s no reason to take things too seriously or too worry too much, which is just as I like it. I just wonder who’s the referee….?

The world is like a stage with the stage being like a blank canvas

My life seems to be sadly missing the requisite Bollywood-style music and dance numbers

BAll the world is indeed a stage with one long mishappening taking place

If I had a few hours I'd begin to explain why but work awaits

I say yes, but I fear I have missed my cue

Somee are more prone to upstage than down.

I’m forever ‘seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth’

My grandfather used to quote the seven ages of man speech
to me when I was little…/

I have a horrible dread that what I write here will be spoken by myself or by another at some point.

/… So I've always known it to some degree I suppose.


I think most of us are putting on a performance as soon as we step out of the house. Otherwise we wouldn’t bother wearing clothes.

Well my friends and I are players.

i don't know where the backstage is

If all the world is a stage, then where does the audience sit?

I intend to play my part, I hope that answers your question!

Every job is an acting job if you’re expected to act like you give a damn. Smiling at people from behind a desk all day – now that’s Method.

I myself appear to be somewhere uncomfortably between "sighing like a furnace" and the TV series 'la femme Nikita'

I believe the world is As you Like it.

If I look at the world from a different perspective (what if I were a marmoset monkey?), I might change my mind.

It’s not very straight forward. And i'm not sure what it is

Everybody is being directed in one way or another.

There is no greater play, than that of life,

I find the though that we are merely here on our mortal coil for such a brief period a quite depressing thought

Our free will is limited by the confines of our environment, and by those rules imposed on us by those in power, our playwrites, if you like

I allow you to be in control of the role i am to play.

I always run a mile from religion…/

At the end of the day, a play is a play, and life is life, and at that a bit more serious I think.

/…must be the catholic upbringing.


It is about appearances, what people think, who is watching, and so on. It is that way with almost everything.

There has to be a story otherwise what’s the point of any of this?

Not sure if he was correct about us all being players. I think we are both – the audience and the players

I never feel that I am absolutely being myself

If all the world was a stage then there wouldn’t be so many unemployed actors in Stoke Newington!!

We certainly all play our parts

Gosh some depressing conclusions could be drawn

We are watching the greatest tragedy right now. I advocate making as much noise as possible.

The world is a stage as long as someone is watching…no matter how boring it is

Could it not also be said that 'the stage is all a world'?

.A stage with many trapdoors, curtains to hide behind, actors who play out parts they expect you to believe

(sung with gusto) ‘There’s no business like show business’.

Something like that, Bassanio

If you want fame you can get it,

Maybe when we go to the theatre we aren’t actually the ones watch the actors but maybe the Actors are watching the Audience

My ex-girlfriend first saw me years before i met her

Maybe it’s his choice as to whether we ever find her again

In my life it is avoiding the eyes of my boss, seeking the eyes of my lover

If the ocean were whiskey and I were a duck, I’d swim to the bottom and never come up

‘All the world’s a stage?’ I hope not – else we would all be players

I reckon those people are genuine, spontaneous and excitingly weird inside, where we can't see

J’ai envie de toi

Surely only true words have such power?

There is always a story

It’s a cold and empty house, with the cast stumbling around lost on stage making up their lines and the story as they go along.

No, I don't think so. Because the world isn't a safe place.




She stands by the Thames, the wind whipping her hair



All we can do is carry out that role
And the stories you don't already know may be better left untold