by Ben Elton
BOTTOM: And what would you call a bear baiter, Mr Greene?
ROBERT GREENE: Master Baiter.
Bottom talks into Will’s ear.
BOTTOM: See what I did there?
WILL: Brilliant, loved it.fn15
ROBERT GREENE: I am come on a mission of great delicacy. My nephew Florian Greene has fallen for a most unsuitable girl, the Lady Rosaline, daughter of a mere country knight. There can, of course, be no question of such a lowly match, so the boy must be kept from her.
WILL: And what part of this unedifying tale of upper-class entitlement is of interest to me?
ROBERT GREENE: Florian travels to Cambridge next week to take his place at the university. You must keep him here till then. You see, this lowly boarding house is far from court and Miss Rosaline will never find him here.
WILL: I am a busy writer, sirrah. Why should I do this?
ROBERT GREENE: Because I am Master of the Queen’s Revels and, if you don’t, I will deny your plays a licence.fn16
WILL: You mean, you’re corruptly using your public position to further your own private interests.
ROBERT GREENE: Ah, duh! I will have the boy sent to you this e’en, bound tight for his blood runs hot. I myself will return in a week for a farewell dinner. A good day.
Greene departeth still full blown with pride.
WILL: Hmm … I am due at the theatre to discuss my new romance, but now must play nursey nursey, wipey nosey to a rogering, roistering, student clod-hopper. And all because Robert Greene be made Master of Revels. Why be he Master of Revels? What qualifies him to be my judge?
BOTTOM: Well, he’s posh and he went to Cambridge.
WILL: Exactly. His very birth did guarantee him advancement, whilst mine precluded it. It is almost as if there be suspended over this sceptred isle a ceiling made of glass against which men of lower birth such as I must always bonk our noggins.fn17
BOTTOM: Do you think that’s why you’re going a bit bald?
WILL: I am not going bloody bald! I … I have a very big brain.fn18
THE RED LION THEATRE – DAY
The actors Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and Will Kempe be all assembled.
CONDELL: Mr Burbage, I am the senior actor of female roles in this company.
BURBAGE: My dear Condell, the ingénue in Master Shakespeare’s promised play is a maid of thirteen summers. A young bud scarce yet in bloom.
CONDELL: And your point?
BURBAGE: I think he seeks an actor that doesn’t have to shave his ears.
Will doth bustle in.
WILL: Good morrow. Good morrow, all.
CONDELL: 'Don’t you good-morrow me, Mr Shakespeare. This new romance you’re writing.
WILL: Aye, ‘Romeo and Julian’.
BURBAGE: Juliet.
WILL: As I said, ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
CONDELL: Burbage says you want me to play some bloody nanny?
WILL: The nurse is a fine comedy role.
KEMPE: Comedy? Oh, don’t give it to him, then.
CONDELL: I can do comedy.
KEMPE: Yeah, but only in London, yeah? Not really Florence, is it?
BURBAGE: Yes, we all know you’ve worked in Italy, Kempe.
KEMPE: Mmm, ooh, did I get an award? Can’t remember. Oh, that’s right, I did, yeah? A proper one. Not English, Italian, yeah? Commedia dell’Arte. Mmm. Heard of it?fn19
CONDELL: Since you became big in Italy, Kempe, an unsufferable smuglington hast thou become.
KEMPE: Yeah, but an unsufferable smuglington who’s big in Italy.fn20
CONDELL: I am the senior lady actor and I insist on playing Juliet!
WILL: Look, the play isn’t even finished. I’m stuck on the character of my Romeo and, what’s more, as yet I don’t have an ending.
BURBAGE: Surely our young lovers will live happily ever after?
WILL: Mm, well, that’s the obvious ending.
BURBAGE: Yes.
WILL: The ending the crowd will want.
BURBAGE: Yes.
WILL: So I thought I’d kill them instead.
BURBAGE: Kill them? Our teenage sweethearts?
WILL: Yes. Theatre should be challenging.
BURBAGE: And entertaining.
WILL: Mainly challenging.fn21
BURBAGE: Oh …
WILL: I just need to work out a decent double-death plot.
CONDELL: I can do dying. I’m good at dying.
KEMPE: Yeah, onstage every night. Ah, who said that? Ah, I did so …
CONDELL: Mr Shakespeare, I need this role. I can woo Romeo, I know I can. Let me show you. Find a way for me to prove it.
KEMPE: Bit sad though, begging.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY
Will be at his work. Bottom enters dragging a figure who is tied up and concealed within a big bag.
BOTTOM: We’ve had a delivery.
WILL: Lock up the beef and ale, Bottom. Tell the poor to bar their doors. We unleash the most parasitic creature in Christendom, the English posh boy.fn22
Bottom is about to open the bag.
WILL: Stay your hand a moment, Bottom. Have you your dagger handy?
BOTTOM: Do you think he’s dangerous?
WILL: Possibly. These Oxbridge yobos are extraordinarily strong, having spent their entire lives with literally enough to eat. They join clubs called the Burst Ballsack and the Fisted Peasant, where they gorge and fight and roger and quaff till they coat the walls with gut-porridge.fn23
BOTTOM: Bit jealous, are we?
WILL: Bloody jealous! Particularly as when they graduate they all get to be bishops and ambassadors and members of the privy council. In England I’m afraid it’s not what you know, it’s what dead farmyard animals you rogered at university. We can put it off no longer. Unleash the posh boy.fn24
Bottom doth cut open the bag. The youth Florian, a fey young man, emergeth.
FLORIAN: Rosaline, Rosaline! Wherefore art thou, Rosaline?
Florian doth search the room.
WILL: Goodness, this is, this is spooky. He’s asking why his beloved’s name is Rosaline.
BOTTOM: Actually, I think he’s asking where Rosaline is.
WILL: Probably best to leave the linguistic interpretation to me.
FLORIAN: Where are you, Rosaline? Where are you? I wish I knew where you were!
Bottom turns to Will.
BOTTOM: You gonna admit I was right?
FLORIAN: O brutal love, despised love. Love is the angry thorn upon the false rose and I am a prick.
BOTTOM: Blimey, have we gotta spend a week with this arsemongle?
WILL: Resist your thuggish interjections, Bottom. I see in this lovelorn loon the very model of my Romeo.
FLORIAN: Oh, thou rude and deceiving table. (Doth thump the table) Four legs hast thou, yet none are Rosaline’s. I would cut off every one and eat upon the floor for but one glance at Rosaline’s sweet knees.fn25
BOTTOM: I’m sorry, but this bloke’s a total wankington.
WILL: You must make allowance for his youth and ardour.
FLORIAN: (Kicketh the floor) Curse the floor that doth not support Rosaline. (Picketh up a broom and hitteth the ceiling) Curse the ceiling that doth not shelter Rosaline. (Slappeth Bottom in the face) Curse the bondsman that doth not serve Rosaline.
WILL: Well, maybe he is a bit of a wankington.
FLORIAN: Sirrah, who are you?
WILL: My name is Will Shakespeare, Master Florian. And I’ve been charged with keeping you safe till you go to university.
FLORIAN: Never. I will leave this place at once and search the world until I find my Rosaline.
WILL: I’m afraid that’s out of the question.
Florian picketh up a knife.
FLORIAN: Then I will kill myself. Rosaline, Rosaline! Wherefore art thou, Rosaline?
Florian goes to stab himself, then pauses as Kate entereth.
KATE: Mr Shakespeare, I’ve learned one of Juliet’s speeches. And if you’ll just let me show you w
hat I’ve—
WILL: Kate, I’m really, really busy.
Kate poses to perform.
KATE: ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’fn26
WILL: Not now, Kate.
KATE: Sorry.
She leaveth.
WILL: Now, Master Florian, don’t be foolish. You’re going to have to put Rosaline out of your mind.
FLORIAN: Rosaline? Rosaline? Who’s this foul trollop, Rosaline?
WILL: Why, your love, I thought.
FLORIAN: Kate. Kate be my love. I will love none but my Kate.
WILL: Kate? You … you mean, our Kate?!
FLORIAN: Where she breathes, flowers bloom. Where she sings, pixies dance. Her most billowingly flatulent fartle-barfle be more sweetly scented than all the perfumes of Arabia.fn27
BOTTOM: Well, you see, you’re wrong there. She’s not a bad-looking bird, but let me tell you, if she leaves one hanging in a room you’re still chewing on it an hour later.
Florian punches Bottom most angrily.
FLORIAN: My Kate doth teach the candles to burn bright. Kate! Kate!
Florian doth hurry from the room in pursuit of Kate. Will taketh up his quill.
WILL: Zounds, I’ve gotta get some of this stuff down! He’s my Romeo all right, and what a bit of luck, him going all diddly doodah over our Kate! We thought to be his jailer, but what better chains to keep him close than those of love?
As Will begins to write, Kate doth enter.
KATE: Mr Shakespeare, something quite interesting has just happened.
WILL: Yes, I know, Kate, Master Florian’s taken a shine to you. Just string him along for a week, will you? Let him sing beneath your balcony, write you sonnets, that sort of thing. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.
KATE: It is quite serious. He’s asked me to marry him.
WILL: Well … well, that’s very sweet … marry?! He can’t marry you! Robert Greene thought Rosaline not good enough for his precious Florian and she be the daughter of a knight. Your mum washes my puffling pants.
KATE: Yes, but ’tis not Robert Greene who would marry me, ’tis Florian. And when he does my station will be somewhat elevated – considerably, I might add – above your own.
WILL: But, Kate, if you marry Florian, his uncle will blame me and never license another of my plays!
KATE: Hmm, it’s not my problem, though, is it? Particularly since you won’t let me play Juliet, even though I’d be brilliant and it’s my dream.
WILL: But, Kate, you know very well that it is illegal for girls to do anything interesting!
KATE: Thus, our only recourse is to marry, and if we can marry rich besotted idiots, then all the better.
Kate departeth in high dudgeon.
WILL: Bottom, we have to stop this marriage! We must distract the boy!
BOTTOM: Well, that shouldn’t be difficult. The randy little ponce fancies anything in a skirt.
WILL: That’s right, yes, of course. So all we need to do is find someone in a skirt whom he definitely can’t marry. Oh my God, it’s so obvious!
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – NIGHT
The table is set for dinner. Florian doth sit while Will and Bottom look on. Master Condell entereth dressed in glamorous female attire.
CONDELL: Yoohoo, masters. See, here I am.
Burbage and Kempe follow on with lute and drum.
CONDELL: I am Mistress Sauce Quickly. A shy but biddable young maid, who’s all ripe and hot and drippy. Players!
Burbage and Kempe play most merrily.
CONDELL: (Singing) She that craves her true love’s joy with a hey ho, the wind and the rain. Who’d do the lot for a handsome boy, for the maid she bonketh every day.fn28
WILL: Well, Master Florian. (Both Will and Condell join Florian at the table) What think you of Mistress Sauce Quickly? Doth she not make your loins tremble and your codpiece cry ‘Woof woof’?
FLORIAN: Are you blind? She looks like a man in a dress! Besides, I am spoken for my Kate.
WILL: Ah, but Kate be pure and chaste till wed, while Mistress Sauce Quickly doth promise the lot before dinner.
FLORIAN: Not a bad point, actually.
Kate doth enter, drop-dead gorgeous and like an angel.
KATE: ‘Sweet, goodnight! This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Goodnight, goodnight, as sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!’fn29
Kate doth blow out her candle most saucily with ripe and pouting lips, then departeth.
FLORIAN: Sorry, Mistress Sauce Quickly, that does it. Kate’s the one for me. (Arises) I shall stand beneath Kate’s balcony and strum my lute.
BOTTOM: If that’s a figure of speech, don’t let the watchman catch you.
FLORIAN: Oh well, in that case perhaps I’ll just play her some music.
KATE’S ROOM – NIGHT
Kate all winsome at the window. Will entereth.
WILL: I should be angry with you for pinching my lines like that, but you did do them rather well.
KATE: The verse is so beautiful.
WILL: Look, Kate, crazy as it sounds, perhaps Juliet would be better played by a girl. So, if I were at some point to try – and I only say try – to help you become an actor, would you prefer that to marrying a pervy posh boy?
KATE: Oh, Mr Shakespeare, you know I would, but I am promised now and that is binding in law.
WILL: Well then, we must come up with a plan to get this boy to give you up. And I’ve got a corker.
KATE: Even better than a middle-aged man in lipstick?
WILL: Yes, even better than that.
AN APOTHECARY – NIGHT
All be dark and sinister. Will doth enter most furtively and greet the old apothecary.
WILL: Good e’en, old apothecary.
APOTHECARY: Good e’en, my master. A dark night for business. Perhaps thy business be dark also?
WILL: Yes, well, I suppose it is a bit. My, erm, friend loves this girl.
APOTHECARY: I see, my master. And this ‘friend’ has a spotted cod-dangle and a murky discharge.
WILL: Not at all.
APOTHECARY: You take bat spit and goat snot and rub upon your, I mean, your friend’s, er …
WILL: Apothecary, I be not poxed! I just need a simple potion that will render a person seemingly dead, but from which they will fully recover at the appropriate moment.
APOTHECARY: Well, we have Play Dead. Or else you could buy my own brand of the mixture, which is exactly the same but half the price.
WILL: I think I’ll stick to the popular brand, thank you. I’m happy to pay a little more for the nebulous sense of comfort that a public brand imbues.
Will hands over the money.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – NIGHT
The youth Florian, all lovelorn, doth strum his lute beneath Kate’s window.
BOTTOM: Master Florian, I’ve come with a message from your true love, Kate.
FLORIAN: Why, sirrah, if you speak Kate’s words then you are her mouth.
BOTTOM: Er, not really.
FLORIAN: And so must I kiss thee.
BOTTOM: Er … this is not consensual.
Florian doth kiss Bottom most fulsomely upon his lips before recoiling in horror.
FLORIAN: Oh God! Your breath doth stink like you dine on dung! Deliver your message and be gone.
BOTTOM: Mistress Kate has gone to the local chapel. Her countenance was dark and wild. I fear some madness has come upon her. She called for you, master. Hurry, lest you be too late.fn30
Florian departeth in anxious haste.
A CRYPT – NIGHT
Kate sitteth upon a convenient tomb. Bottom and Will stand ready, Will with the potion.
WILL: Right, Kate, you swig the potion, Florian finds you, thinks you dead and breaks off the engagement. I can’t see how it can possibly go wrong.
KATE: Well, to play Juliet …
Kate drinketh fro
m the bottle and of a sudden faints dead away.fn31 Now the youth Florian approaches.
WILL: And soft, he comes!
Will and Bottom do hide themselves.
FLORIAN: Dark, so dark. I fear my love’s not here for surely her bright eyes would be a lantern in the gloom. (Spies Kate’s unconscious form) What’s this? My Kate lies cold. Does she sleep? No, she is dead!
WILL: Now, will he say, ‘Oh well, bad luck, I’ll just have to forget about her and go to Cambridge’?
FLORIAN: Poisoned! Dead from poison?! Dead!
WILL: ‘Oh well, win some, lose some. Plenty more totty in Cambridge’?fn32
FLORIAN: If Kate be dead then Florian need not live. Perchance, some trace of poison does linger on her lips. A kiss and I will share her fate.
Florian kisses Kate.
WILL: Blimey. He’s taking it a bit harder than I expected.
FLORIAN: And yet no friendly drop remains. Perchance she did brush her teeth and then gargle after drinking it? (Anguished, he doth draw his blade) With a dagger I die …
And so doth Florian stab himself most horribly in the gutlings. Will and Bottom reveal themselves in all haste.
WILL: No, no! She be not dead, the potion only made her seem dead. She’ll wake up any second!
FLORIAN: Bolingbrokes. (Falls dead)fn33
WILL: He dies! Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet idiot. Thy heart was big, thy brain tiny.fn34
Now Kate doth most conveniently awake on cue.
KATE: Soft, I wake. Did the plan work? Did Florian find my still body, think me dead and depart for Cambridge with a shrug?
BOTTOM: Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
WILL: Right, good … Don’t panic, we can deal with this. We just need another brilliant plan.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – NIGHT
The assembled company be present, Condell dressed as a woman and Burbage and Kempe holding Florian’s dead body upright betwixt them. Bottom completeth laying the table for dinner. Will doth enter with Robert Greene.
WILL: Welcome, Master Greene, to your Florian’s farewell feast. Burbage and his company and Mistress Sauce Quickly have joined us to make of it a merry evening.