A toast! To my dad, John Shakespeare,
gentleman at last!
And anyone who says I ain't, I'll whack ‘em on the bum with my heraldic shield!
We've finally got our coat of arms!
I am a pamperloin once more, as I was in the house of my father.
No longer the wife of a grotsome old barfing-hog,
for now I be married to a gentleman. Oh!
I still can't quite believe it.
Chief Herald Greene swore he'd do anything to deny us.
Ah, but that was before the Queen saw my big midsummer donkey-gag play.
She loved it and decreed that only the son of a gentleman
could have writ such wit, and thus has she made me posh.
But, master, you've always railed and ranted
against how the pamperloins and folderols are on top in England
just because they're posh.
Yes, Bottom, but that was before I managed to weasel my way into the club.
Now I'm posh myself, I see the English class system is entirely appropriate,
my own elevation wholly merited
and those beneath me a bunch of feckless, undeserving oiks.
I wish I could have been there to see Greene's face,
but can't risk going out in public.
Too many knives sharpened, too many musket balls with my name on them.
Really, Kit? I knew you were lying a bit low, but you're in real danger?
Mortal, mate. The whole spy gig's gone completely puffling pants-shaped.
The Crown suspects me of being a double agent.
My own fault.
I keep getting pisslingtoned and forgetting which near-identical branch
of the same religion we're supposed to hunt down and kill.
Well, yes, it is confusing.
Which has not gone down well with the God-prodding pure-titties,
who also accuse me of being an atheist.
I mean, in truth, Will, I'm in so much danger, I'd be better off dead.
Cheers.
Eh up, the girls are back. Sounds like they've had a good time, too.
It was good of Kate to take our Sue out sightseeing.
Well, who better to show her all London's spiritual treasures
than a studious, sober, serious-minded girl like Kate?
Oh, my giggly goodly godlingtons!
We have bought so much craplington!
Look at this brilliant shirting vest, Dad, with a comical motif stitched upon it.
"My friend hath visited London and all I gotteth be this stupid under-shirting."
Isn't it brilliant?
And look at all these sweet London souvenirs.
A little severed head of a traitor on a key chain.
A little incinerated Catholic martyr on a key chain.
A little rotting plague corpse on a key chain.
A little country maid who had journeyed here in search of honest work
but within six weeks has become a toothless pox-ridden prostitute
on a key chain.
Thanks very much, Kate. I think we get the gist.
Right, you lot, if you'd like to start packing up, I'm sure Dad's busy.
Yes, wife, 'tis true, I am terribly pushed just now.
Mine sublime big donkey-gag play has been such a smasheroo
that Burbage demands I write another comedy,
yet I have not a comic idea in my head.
That's never stopped you before.
His comedy made you a gentleman.
Now, come on, let's get out of his hair.
Yeah, what there is of it.
Which is, in fact, a lot, daughter.
The impression of thinning is a trick of the light
caused by my unusually shiny scalp.
You're bald, son.
Own it.
I apologise to no man!
Especially now I'm very, very posh
and terribly refined, and quite the thing, don't you know?
Watch out below, don't you know?!
Shakespeare! Shakespeare!
Shakespeare!
That oiksome oaf is ever a thorn in my soft and tender botty-buttocks.
‘Tis against all natural order that a man of such lowly stock
be permitted to rise to a gentleman's rank.
Ah, this Shakespeare must be destroyed.
But how...
when Gloriana herself hath smiled upon him because of his big donkey-gag play?
Well... If I cannot stop his genius,
then perchance there is a way
to deny him credit for it.
Mm-hm! I begin to see my way.
Mr Shakespeare, confused am I.
You say you have no ideas for a comedy,
and yet I know you have been hard at work at one for ages.
And from what you've read us, I believe it will be your greatest gag-fest yet.
Comedy, child? I've writ no new comedy.
Yes, you have. The one you keep telling us about.
The one about the Prince of Denmark.
You mean Hamlet?
Hilarious central character!
Pure genius.
A grumpy, whiny, self-important student
who does up absolutely zero coursework and will not get over himself!
I just love it!
Get a job, you useless bastable.
He's like, "I'm a prince and I live in a castle, and I'm really, really rich,
"but I'm also really, really sad."
"I've got parent issues, and nobody understands me,
"and I'm just, like, questioning the whole point of my existence!"
- "I think I might kill myself!" - "Except maybe I won't."
- "Maybe I will." - "Maybe I won't."
"Maybe I will.".
Just do it, you selfish arsingmongel! Nobody cares!
I mean, what is his problem?
His problem is that he is being haunted by his father,
who was murdered by his uncle, who is sleeping with his mother!
I know!
Talk about a dysfunctional family!
It's just brilliant for comedy!
For me, it's the structure which is so original.
At the start his dad says, "Avenge me!"
And Hamlet says, "On it, Dad. I will avenge you right away."
But then he doesn't.
For five flipping acts!
Honestly, Mr S, you are amazing!
Creating a vain, entitled, self-obsessed, procrastinating crybaby
who's taken up permanent residence in his own arsington!
I imagine it could have been centuries
before someone came up with a comedy around a person like that.
But it's supposed to be tragic!
And it is.
As in, "Oh, my God, that bloke is just tragic!"
My favourite bit is the mini-farce at the end.
Mini-farce at the end?!
The death scene.
Oh, it's so over the top you must have needed a ladder to write that!
I'll get it.
My Hamlet is not a comedy!
It is a forensically astute journey into the tortured heart of the human soul!
Its fearless examination of the agonising reality of existence
is searingly perceptive, particularly the death scene!
Will, come on, please! The Hamlet death scene? Forensically astute?
Fearlessly realistic?
You are pulling my plonkington.
I am not pulling your plonkington.
Hamlet's death scene is the greatest and most convincing scene
I have ever written.
An 18-page masterclass on the true nature of life and death!
However, since Burbage requires a light and whimsical comedy,
I must set aside my tragic masterpiece and search for an idea elsewhere.
I found this note under the door.
Ouch.
Well, that's a bit worrying, what with London seething with people
who would long to see my gutlings spilled from my quartered body.
Gutlings spilled from your quartered body, Kit?
Can things really be as serious as that?
You know how it is. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Well, obviously, I know, Kit.
‘Twas I that coined the phrase... in...
in my Richard, 1 think,
or possibly a random Henry. A lot of swords in those.
But definitely one of mine.
Why then, Mr Shakespeare, call the watch!
Appeal to the Privy Council!
Cry, "Foul and naughty tricks!" for I fear you have been plagiarised.
Plagiarised? By whom? Who's stealing my biggies?
Name this thieving bastable!
The Apostle Matthew.
The swine! And him a man of God!
Mr Shakespeare, "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword" is in the Bible.
Really? Are you sure?
Yes.
Matthew, chapter 26, verse 52.
Although, interestingly, he didn't come up with it either.
A form of the phrase first appears in the Ancient Greek play Agamemnon
by the immortal dramatist Aeschylus.
Well, if the Apostle Matthew can pinch it, then so can I.
Yes, Kit, definitely one of mine!
And so do I continue my private task of sowing confusion
about what I actually wrote and what people merely think I did.
Until the day dawns when people in their ignorance and vanity
will attribute any archaic-sounding truism to me
in the certitude that it might easily have been me,
and if it wasn't, no-one will know the diff.
Thus will I eventually get credit for inventing the entire English language.
So, shove that up your Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer!
This is interesting. It's from Robert Greene.
He is organising an intellectual salon of London's foremost writers.
They intend to retreat to the country for - get this - a whole year,
forswearing all rumpy-pumpington
and, instead, discussing Roman philosophy far from the distracting company of women.
Eheu, feminae tam stultae sunt ut de philosophia Romana disputare nequeat.
What was that, Kate?
I know it, of course, but for Bottom's sake.
It's Latin for "how sad that women are too stupid to discuss Roman philosophy".
Well, yes, it is a shame, but there you go.
No point crying about it. Birds are thick. Can't change nature.
Get over it.
Anyway, this is great news.
I mean, normally I wouldn't go within a hundred miles of a no-sex salon,
but with every man's hand against me,
this could be the perfect place to hide until the heat's off.
And great news for me, too, Kit.
A posh boys' literary retreat is just the place I need
to come up with an idea for this comedy which eludes me.
But, Mr Shakespeare, a whole year forswearing rumpy-pumpington?
Won't your wife object?
I don't think Anne will mind missing out on one bonk, Kate.
She's...
She's not a sex maniac.
Botsky, pack my bags.
Hang on, Will, the invitations just to me.
Outrage!
London's daintiest poets assemble and I'm excluded?!
They might as well have a gathering of jungle beasts and not invite the lion!
Of Greek gods and not invite Zeus!
Of pie fillings and not invite steak and kidney!
- I'd have said chicken and mushroom. - Ham and leek for me. King of pies.
You're crazy. Apple and blackberry.
Oh, well, if we're allowed sweet fillings...
Are we allowed sweet fillings at this pie-gathering metaphor, Will?
No, I think only savoury.
Look, it doesn't matter!
The point is that,
yet again, pamperloins and folderols are snooting their cocks at me!
Well, I shall create my own country salon.
Bottom, pack my bags!
We're off to Stratters, where I shall write a great comedy.
Or you could just give them Hamlet save us a trip.
Hamlet is not a comedy!
Water only, if you please, Mistress Lucy,
for we are here to discuss the forming of a literary salon.
A literary salon? Hm!
What in the name of Mufasa, the legendary lion king,
and his playful son, Simba, is that?
An intellectual grouping where all who attend
will live lives of mental strength and resilience,
forswearing all rumpy-pumpington for a whole year.
Ah-ah-eh-eh. Such tests are also common in African culture.
When it is time for a young Masai warrior to become a man,
he herds cattle all alone for many, many days,
then he allows himself to be circumcised
by a crazy old fool with no medical training using a stone tool.
Thus proving mental strength and resilience?
Thus proving that all men are idiots, wherever they come from. Hm.
Foolish, heathen woman.
But now she hath removed herself from our conversation
will I speak my darkest thoughts.
This country salon is a ploy, a trick,
part of an ingenious plot
to destroy William Shakespeare.
Are we to lure him into the country to kill him, Mr Greene?
I fear, Sir Francis, that killing him is no longer enough.
‘Tis not the man we must destroy but his reputation.
But how? Shakespeare is the man of the hour.
Exactly, Your Grace, but I speak not of hours, nor days, nor yet years,
but decades, centuries, even.
For today we begin to sow the seeds of doubt that will make people question
whether Shakespeare ever wrote his plays at all.
And the first step in my plan
is to kill... not Shakespeare...
but Marlowe.
Don't ask. Simply do not ask!
Good journey, love?
Well, Idid say, "Don't ask," but since you have asked,
no, I did not have a good journey!
Not only was it dirty, uncomfortable and delayed,
but also it turns out I paid three shillings more for our tickets
than anybody else on the coach.
How did you manage that, son?
How, Mum? Because in my madness, my utter insanity,
I bought my coach ticket at the coach station
on the day I wanted to get on a coach.
A ridiculous thing to do, of course, as I discovered when we got mired in mud.
Heavy downpour near Leamington Spa.
Because, obviously, there's never been rain in the Midlands before,
so how could the geniuses that manage the coaching infrastructure
possibly have expected mud?
Anyway, talk amongst the stranded travellers turned to ticket pricing,
and, oh, what a labyrinthine maze of satanic complexity was then revealed!
First to speak was a goodly matron
who had bought an off-peak super family savington.
Booked prior to the date of departure and valid only on certain services.
For this she had paid tuppence.
Well, an off-peak family concession sounds like a reasonable idea.
Then piped up a rank and stinking yeoman who had spent but a penny
on a nontransferable specialington savey-savey,
purchased no less than a week before travel
and accepted only on coaches that depart
between the hours of 10 and 11 each morning.
Well, travelling when the service is less busy would help.
Finally, spake a stern and warty spinster
who had paid a farthing
for a double-discount cut-rate supesome-dupesome,
savey-wavey, chips-and-gravy, age-concession, off-peaky-weaky,
purchased in a previous life and valid only on coaches
where the driver's middle name was Gerald!
I am not a soothsayer. I am not Nostradamus!
He'd have been all right, wouldn't he?
As well as predicting the end of days and the coming of the Antichrist,
he could have foreseen that on some specific date
in the dim and distant future, he'd want a return ticket to Chipping Norton!
But what are you doing home, anyway, love?
We left London so you could get on with your new comedy.
I find I crave the peace of the country, wife.
In fact, I'm convening a country literary salon.
Greene invited me to his, but I told him,
"Just because I'd been made gentleman
"doesn't mean I want to hang out with you snootish pamperloins.”
You mean they didn't invite you.
No, they bloomin♪ well didn't, but if they had,
that's definitely what I would have told them.
You've got to use your anger, Dad, empower yourself.
Write a comedy about a literary salon.
Do a play about a bunch of stupid posh boys who are so up themselves
they give up sex so they can study Roman philosophy.
Well, I agree, it's not a bad set-up, but I couldn't stretch it across five acts.
Well, you've got to work it up a bit.
How about once they've come up with the no-sex rule, some hot babes turn up?
As I was about to say,
the way to make it work would be to have some hot babes turn up.
Tell me a bit more of what I was about to say.
Obviously, the snooty posh boys are gagging for the hot babes,
but they're stuck with their stupid no-girls rule.
Loving it. God, I'm good!
So, each lad has to try and grab a girl in secret
so their mates don't find out that they've broken the bro code.
Brilliant. They're all covering up the same lie.
How will you end it?
I mean, how will I end it?
I reckon, when all is revealed
and the posh boys have learnt the lesson of their conceited ways,
the hot girls bugger off and tell their humble suitors to wait a year
before they can cop a bit of a feel-up.
And I've even thought up a punch line.
Well, I must say, it sounds like a fun idea.
Yes, and now it only remains to crowbar in
the incomprehensible subplots and pointless minor characters,
and I'll be done.
I knew it was too good to be true.
Master, don't go there. You've got your plot. Just leave it be.
Don't be absurd. Pointless minor characters and incomprehensible subplots
are my signature thing. But people love them.
And I only expect them to get more popular over the years.
Particularly with schoolchildren...
who will no doubt delight in being forced to read my plays out in class.
Imagine it. The master will hand out all the big roles to his favourites,
and all the snotsome grotsomes at the back will think themselves passed over,
but then, oh, joy, there be myriad minor characters
servicing the incomprehensible subplot, so they won't miss out after all.
It's like a curse on youth ricocheting down the years.
Miss Lucy is come calling, Mr Marlowe.
I told her Mr Shakespeare was in Stratford, but she says she wants you.
You are in great danger, Mr Marlowe.
Mr Greene, Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford
intend to lure you to the country and kill you.
Goodness, Miss Lucy, but why?
Ah, to discredit Mr Shakespeare.
Mr Greene believes that if you disappear mysteriously,
a theory of conspiracy will develop,
that you went into hiding to escape the complex world of espionage
and sexual indiscretions
- in which you were mired. - Oh.
But you continue to write plays in secret,
using Mr Shakespeare's name as a cover.
Goodness. That does sound like rather an attractive theory.
Yes. And a lot more interesting than all those works of genius
being written by a town-school baldy-bonce from the Midlands.
Mr Marlowe, you must not go to this literary salon,
for if you do... Hey!
You will not return.
I have my new comedy and, what's more, I've just thought of the title.
Since it be about the effort that goes into wooing,
I shall call it Love's Labour's.
Ooh, I quite like it.
It just feels like it's missing something.
Maybe a third word beginning with L.
Lampooned.
Too comical.
Kind of announces the funny.
Yeah, you don't want to lure them in with false expectations.
How about "lanced", like a boil?
Love's Labour's Lanced?
Not bad.
Lubricated.
Goes to a slightly weird place and...
perhaps a bit long.
It needs a nice, short, punchy word with a touch of regret.
Got it!
- Lost. - Licked.
Love's Labour's Licked?
It's perfect. Licked as in "got it licked".
The posh bird has taken the pamperloin's love and she's licked it.
Will! will!
Pardon me, all. Just need to talk to the man.
I'm in mortal danger. You've got to help me.
Goodness, Kit, do you want us to hide you?
No, it's not good enough. They'll find me.
I need to fake my own death, and it must be utterly convincing.
We can leave nothing to chance.
No, absolutely! This death scene has to be forensically astute.
You've got that right.
- Fearlessly realistic. - Totally.
A masterclass on the true nature of life and death.
I think you know where I'm going with this.
Ah...
Gentlemen, this enforced idleness in the country will be worth the trouble.
With Marlowe's disappearance, I plant the first of my theories of conspiracy
which will dog the Crow's reputation for all time.
The first, Mr Greene? You have more?
Oh, yes.
Next must you, Sir Francis Bacon, ensure that included in your future writings
there be certain words and punctuation common to those used by Mr Shakespeare.
Thus will future anally retentive, self-important saddos
find evidence of similarity between your works and his
and conclude that you are Shakespeare.
But, Mr Greene, of course there will be similarities of words and punctuation.
We both write in English.
Exactly.
It's so conclusive, I'm almost convinced myself.
And you, my dear Earl of Oxford,
I intend that you, too, will one day
be thought of as a putative author of the Crow's plays.
This is absurd, Mr Greene.
There is not one single shred of evidence linking either Marlowe, Bacon or myself
to Shakespeare's plays.
Exactly.
There is no evidence.
Can you think of better proof of a cover-up?
And it begins... with the death...
of Christopher Marlowe.
And so you see, gentlemen, Mr Marlowe's enemies gather for the kill,
and the only way to save him is for the world to believe him dead.
So, you intend we fake Mr Marlowe's death in a fight?
Absolutely.
And, in so doing, prove to you and sneering Kit
that my sublime Hamlet is not a comedy
- but bitter human truth. - Good luck with that.
We will rehearse the scene now and perform it later in a crowded tavern.
So, to work.
Mr Marlowe arrives at the tavern full of fury.
- Intent on killing me. - Yes, that's right.
- You're playing his uncle, Claudius. - Claudius? Why Claudius?
Oh, just thought it was a good name for a murdering, cuckolding bastable.
Ah! So he's a murdering, cuckolding bastable, is he?
I like it!
I shall give him a stoop and a limp for extra naturalism!
Love it. Now, Marlowe wants you dead because you poisoned his dad.
- Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare. - I certainly will.
He poured it in his ear.
I'm sorry, that's funny?
Yeah. "Oh, I want to poison my brother. How shall I do it?
"Shall I secretly put it in his wine or discreetly bake it in his pie?
"No, I'll pour it in his ear.
"Isn't that how everybody poisons people?”
Actually, I do think Mr Shakespeare is right.
Thank you, Burbage.
Yes, the odd comic detail will pique the public interest in the case.
It is not comic, it's cruelly poignant.
Now, having murdered Hamlet's dad - I mean, Marlowe's dad -
Uncle Claudius is now a-dallying with Marlowe's mum.
Mr Condell, you will play Kit's mother, Gertrude.
Quite a challenge. I'm horribly young for it.
Gertrude and Claudius are flirting together
and Marlowe arrives full of fury, bent on revenge.
I leap to my feet!
A savage, stooped and limping villain!
We fight! He dies! I like it!
Yes, an excellent plot.
And one I feel sure will satisfy the authorities.
Don't be ridiculous. That's not a death scene.
Blimey, there's only one death.
Besides which, we need complex motivations.
Kit had a girlfriend, Ophelia, who has been driven mad.
Trying to follow this plot. Who said that? I did. So...
Because Kit has previously accidentally stabbed her father.
Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
He was hiding behind a curtain and Kit stabbed him by mistake.
Which is not funny!
Ophelia, of course, goes mad with grief and dies.
Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
She drowns in a duck pond.
There's a duck pond in this pub, then?
The duck pond is offstage. I mean, elsewhere.
Her death is reported
and will, in my view, one day provide the excuse for many pervy paintings
by dirty old artists depicting dead nymphets in wet nighties.
But the point is, Ophelia's death is important backstory,
because, as Kit turns up, hellbent on confronting his wicked uncle...
Just to be clear, young Will,
how does Mr Marlowe know that it's his uncle who's killed his father?
Yes. Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
His father's ghost told him.
Which is not funny!
So, Mr Marlowe, plagued by his father's ghost, has come to kill his uncle.
Just then, Laertes turns up.
That's you, Kempe.
So, Laertes? Have I missed something?
He's Ophelia's brother, bent on avenging his father and his sister.
So, we now have two sons avenging their fathers?
Isn't this getting a little confusing, will?
How? How is it confusing?
One of the avenging sons is avenging his stabbed father and drowned sister.
And the other is avenging his poisoned father and defiled mother.
How could that be any clearer?
Ooh, can't think...
So, Burbage and Condell are sitting in the pub together having a flirt and a banter.
Oh, can I have some pickled herrings to toy with?
I'd like a bit of business, as I don't seem to have much in this scene.
No, Mr Condell, because I know you,
and suddenly Marlowe's death would be all about the pickled herrings.
That's an outrageous slur!
Kit bursts in, full of murderous fury,
but then Laertes also bursts in, also full of murderous fury.
Kempe wounds Kit, but, in the struggle, Kempe dies.
Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
By stabbing himself.
As you do.
Condell, seeing her son wounded
and feeling a bit guilty about rogering his uncle, also dies.
Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
She drinks some conveniently placed poisoned wine.
Did she pour it in her ear? I've heard that's the best way to take poison.
Kit, sorely wounded but driven by vengeful fury, stabs Burbage, who also dies.
Kit then dies as well, before all order is restored.
Tell them how, Mr Shakespeare.
By the arrival of the Norwegian army.
None of which is funny!
Master, I've terrible news.
Christopher Marlowe... is dead.
An unmarked grave.
An unmarked grave in Deptford is all they give him.
Such a paltry memorial.
And such a paltry end.
I had prepared for him a truly great death scenario.
But, instead, he is stabbed in the eye in a brawl in a small room
over the reckoning of a bill.
And such were the number and variety of his enemies at his end that...
we four are all that come to mourn him.
Yes. A bit disappointing, can't deny.
I was kind of hoping for a state funeral.
- Kit! - Shh-shh. Keep it down, mate.
I'm supposed to be dead.
But... Aren't you dead?
No! I got three old mates from the service to rig a fight using a stage dagger.
It's a plague corpse in the coffin.
But, Kit, Iwas supposed to rig your death.
You asked me to help.
Yeah. Yeah, but then you wanted to use that scene from Hamlet and, well...
He didn't want people to think he'd laughed himself to death.
Still, one good thing...
With Mr Marlowe thought actually dead, instead of mysteriously disappeared,
there be no chance that people will imagine he lived on
and wrote under your name, Mr Shakespeare.
Pah! People will believe anything they want to believe.
Ancient Hindu creation legend believes
that the world is balanced on the back of a giant tortoise.
Ah-ah-eh-eh.
Perhaps the giant tortoise wrote your plays.
Twrote my blooming plays!
If you say so, Mr Shakespeare. Hm! If you say so.
So, the world thinks Marlowe's dead,
but, actually, he's sleeping on your couch.
Well, you know, just till he sets up a new identity
and forges a new life for himself.
Well, I can't see him hurrying to do that, love.
Not with your ale to quaff and pie to gorge.
Dad, I've been reading Hamlet,
and, actually, I can see why you think it would make a great tragedy.
Really, daughter?
But I can also see why they all laughed at it.
Can I be honest?
Of course.
You know, within reason.
You need to keep working on it.
I mean, some of the lines are almost there.
Like... "To top myself or not to top myself."
But...
I just don't think you've quite got to the heart of Hamlet's agony.
Maybe you're just too comfortable and content
to get inside that kind of character.
Well, let's hope it stays that way, eh?
Because if personal tragedy is what it takes
to properly interpret Hamlet's despair,
I hope your Danish play be never finished.
Me, too. Goodnight.
Night.
Well, no matter.
I've got my new comedy written anyway.
Love's Labour's Licked.
"Lost", love. We decided on "lost", didn't we?
Oh, yes. That's right. Susanna thought "licked" but I said "lost", didn't I?
Love's Labour's Lost.
Or should it be "licked"?