NO ONE is safe in Shakespeare as the characters meet their ends in stabbings, poisonings, drownings, and snake bites - and these are now immortalised in a fun card game.

With the new stage production The Complete Deaths, coming to the Theatre Royal Brighton for the Brighton Festival, the new Great Shakespearean Deaths Card-Gayme has been released.

The game has been produced by Brighton-based theatre company Spymonkey, which are behind the new production and they have teamed up with beloved Children's Laureate Chris Riddell.

The writer and illustrator drew the pictures of the unsuspecting characters meeting their demise in both humorous and brutal fashion.

In total 74 characters die in the works of Shakespeare and the 75th death is the fly is struck from the air with a knife in Titus Andronicus.

From these 30 have been immortalised by Riddell - including the unlucky fly.

Some of the other deaths included are Clarence, being drowned in a vat of wine in Richard III, Cordelia being hung by the neck in King Lear, Desdemona being smothered in Othello and the repeated and brutal stabbing of Julius Caesar.

The game pays like a round of top trumps for two to five players.

Categories on the cards - rated out of ten - are the speed of death, gore and brutality, fairness, piteousness, dramatic quality and last words.

Each card continues one of Riddell's drawings alongside a description of their death and their last words.

The Complete Deaths theatre production will stage all of Shakespeare's deaths back to back in comedic fashion, with the show kicking off in Brighton tomorrow (Wednesday) and running until Sunday.

The work has been commissioned by the Brighton Festival to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death for the 50th anniversary of the annual arts extravaganza.

Chris Riddell will be making three appearances at the Brighton Festival with Ask the Laureate on May 14 and Poems and Pictures Live on May 15, both at the Sallis Benney Theatre on Grand Parade, and Picture Book Masterclass on May 22 in the Brighton Dome Founders Room.

To buy the Shakespeare death card game go to spymonkey.co.uk/shop or visit the Theatre Royal Brighton on New Road.