Upstart Crow

by Ben Elton

  LORD INQUISITOR: Stretch the damned hugger-tugger till he confesses.

  KIT MARLOWE: A moment, if you please? Don’t you worry, Will, I’ve got this.

  Marlowe accidentally leans on the rack lever, causing it to tighten. Will screams.

  WILL: Argh!

  KIT MARLOWE: Sorry! Sorry! My Lord Inquisitor.

  LORD INQUISITOR: Yes.

  KIT MARLOWE: You have the evidence before you, one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, but may I enquire if you’ve actually read them?

  LORD INQUISITOR: I’m not going to lie. Skimmed a bit.

  KIT MARLOWE: And do you think that many people are ever gonna read them?

  LORD INQUISITOR: Not really, no.

  KIT MARLOWE: Of those that do actually read them, how many of those do you think honestly will actually have the faintest idea what it’s about?

  LORD INQUISITOR: Well, not very many of them, if I’m honest.fn28

  WILL: Well, just a minute—

  KIT MARLOWE: And of those who do have a vague idea as to what they’re about, how many of those will only have arrived at such an understanding via forced study from joyless schoolmasters?

  LORD INQUISITOR: Well, most of them, I imagine. Can’t really see them being read for pleasure. Not really a privy book, is it?

  WILL: Are you mad? They’re brilliant!

  KIT MARLOWE: The defence contends that far from being an incitement to sexual depravity, these sonnets are in fact an incitement to a nice long nap.

  LORD INQUISITOR: Well, yes, I did nod off once or twice.

  KIT MARLOWE: I rest my case.

  LORD INQUISITOR: Release Mr Shakespeare.

  ROBERT GREENE: I object!

  WILL: I bloody object too!

  WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY

  Will sits with his sonnets. Kate and Bottom attend.

  WILL: Well, thanks to you and Kit Marlowe, Bottom, I am acquitted, but only on grounds that my poetry be too wilfully obscure for anyone to bother actually reading.

  BOTTOM: Sometimes you’ve gotta be cruel to be kind.

  WILL: I’ll no more of sonnets.

  KATE: I think you should write one more sonnet, Mr Shakespeare.

  WILL: Another one, Kate, why? Who for? None likes them.

  KATE: For Anne, your wife. I’ve been thinking about what you asked me. How to win back her favour. And it seems to me that if ’twere poems to other women which did upset her, then to set it right you must needs pen one to her.

  WILL: Of course! Of course! What a subject, a love poem to an illiterate farm wench whom I only married because I’d got her up the duffington. Such a challenge.

  Will begins to write.

  KATE: Mm, yes.

  WILL: The muse be upon me. ‘My darling, you are my entire world.’

  KATE: Good, nice start.

  WILL: ‘Though you be old and rather plumpish, sadly …’

  KATE: Erm …

  WILL: ‘A common, saggy, ignorant old girl …’

  KATE: Ah …

  WILL: ‘And yet for all that I do love you madly.’

  KATE: Erm …

  WILL: What do you think? Pretty good so far, eh?

  KATE: It is good but, as a woman, if I might suggest just one or two tiny cuts.

  WILL: But it isn’t even finished. That’s four lines. I need ten more.fn29

  KATE: Honestly, we’ve got enough.

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – NIGHT

  Will and Anne do sit before the fire. Will reads his new sonnet to Anne.

  WILL: ‘My darling, you are my entire world. I do love you madly.’

  ANNE: Is that it?

  WILL: Yes, that’s it.

  ANNE: Oh, Will, it’s lovely.

  WILL: Lovely? It doesn’t scan and it’s missing twelve and a half lines.

  ANNE: I don’t care. All I ever wanted was my own sonnet. My own sonnet by Will Shakespeare.

  WILL: Mm, yes. Although it’s not actually a sonnet.

  ANNE: I don’t care. It says ‘I love you’, which is all a love poem should do.fn30

  WILL: Mm, a lot of people think that, which personally I find weird. Anyway, I’m done with sonnets. They’ve brought me nothing but misery and rejection. These a hundred and fifty-four will warm our toes a little and that’s all they’re good for.

  Will goes to throw them in the fire. Anne stops him.

  ANNE: Oh, stay thy hand, husband. There’s a couple in here might be worth a few groats. There’s one about a summer’s day that I think could be popular on its first two lines alone. And there’s another one about a marriage of two minds that I think might be a big hit at weddings.fn31

  WILL: You think so?

  ANNE: Come on, read me mine again.

  WILL: Oh God, if I must.

  EPISODE 5

  WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

  In this extraordinary episode from Shakespeare’s life we see quite clearly the genesis of perhaps his most popular play, the tragedy of Macbeth. Scholars previously thought that Shakespeare drew inspiration from passages in Holinshed’s Chronicles, but this proves otherwise. Amazing to think that the famous scene in which Lady Macbeth washes non-existent blood from her hands was inspired by Anne washing hers after a wee.

  A BLASTED HEATH – NIGHT

  Owls hoot. Crows cackle. Wild pigs fart. Mist doth envelop all. Will, Marlowe and Kate enter. Bottom follows heavy laden with baggage. Will’s temper be sore tried and his puffling pants most spotted with dank dung.

  WILL: Once, just once, I’d like to take a coach service that fulfils its obligations to the travelling public according to the promised schedule.

  BOTTOM: I don’t like this heath. Spooky.

  WILL: If they can’t manage that, at least be honest about it. Time of departure: when we can be arsed. Time of arrival: some point in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

  KIT MARLOWE: Well, in fairness, Will, the coach did throw a wheel.

  WILL: Because the lane was rutted and the axle weak, Kit. And why is that? Because the exorbitant fares we pay get to line the puffling pants of bloated shareholders and none be spent on upgrading the rolling stock, mending the tracks or ensuring there be an adequate supply of soft leaves and damp moss in the coach-house privy.

  KATE: How far is it, do you think, Mr Shakespeare? I really don’t like this heath.

  The company do sit upon a rock or tree stump, save for Bottom, who standeth, as befits his lowly place in life.

  WILL: Oh, about a dozen furlongs, Kate. Mainly bog with patches of swamp.

  KIT MARLOWE: Well, it’s better than being in London. You do not wanna be in Southwark with the Black Death in town.

  KATE: Such a shame they had to close the theatres.fn1

  WILL: Hmm, a grim business. We were giving my Richard the night it struck. Awful moment. I thought half the audience had nodded off. Big relief to discover they were dead.

  BOTTOM: ’Course, some of them had died in their sleep.

  WILL: A few, Bottom. Ten at most.

  KIT MARLOWE: Well, we’ll make a merry crew in Warwickshire and no mistake. You at Stratford and me staying at Sir Thomas Livesey’s manor house near by.fn2

  WILL: Particularly with Burbage and his company forced out of London on tour and booked to perform.

  KIT MARLOWE: Ah, well, I may skip that. The Livesey children have a French teacher who teases most cheekily whenever I come to visit. Always whispering l’amour and then running away. Well, this time I hope to catch her. Prenons un petit seau, avec un chou le-dedans, hein? Which is French. It means ‘chase my little cupcake into the larder’.

  KATE: Actually, Mr Marlowe, it means ‘grab a small bucket with a cabbage in it’.

  KIT MARLOWE: Really?

  WILL: Gosh, Kit, you’re such a cool chap.

  KIT MARLOWE: Yes, I am.

  KATE: It was kind of you to invite me along as well, Mr Shakespeare. I can’t wait to meet your daughter Susanna. I hope we shall be best of friends.

  WILL: Mm
, well I … I’m not sure I’d call her friendly.

  KATE: Oh, Mr Shakespeare, I’m sure she’s perfect and I shall love her. When I was young I didn’t have a lot of friends … or any, in fact.

  BOTTOM: Well, that’s dead sad, that.

  KATE: No, no, Bottom, it was my own fault. I was a bit of a swotty try-hard. Always trying to chat to girls in Latin at slumber parties or discuss the oppression of the female sex. John Knox’s book The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women had just come out and I was so angry about it.fn3

  An eerie squawking is heard but ’tis only the lonely cry of the crow. Or possibly the belch of a boar.

  BOTTOM: God, this heath is really, really spooky.

  WILL: Oh, for goodness sake, Bottom, desist. It’s the 1590s, not the Dark Ages. A glorious age of reason and logic.

  BOTTOM: You still believe in wood nymphs.

  WILL: I’m torn. I think the jury’s out. After all, if dew be not the tears of scolded fairies, then how do you explain it?

  The travellers set off once more upon their weary journey.

  KIT MARLOWE: Well, exactly.

  WILL: There be no rain in the night yet come morn the ground be soft.

  KIT MARLOWE: I mean, how does that work?

  Kate doth keep Bottom company as he struggles with his heavy load.

  KATE: I did try to make friends. One time I organized a pink-themed girly party with strawberry pudding and raspberry lemonade, but nobody came. Perhaps it was a mistake to write the invitations in Greek.

  BOTTOM: You think?

  KATE: But this time with Susanna I am determined to make a proper pal.

  Now does appear a most terrifying vision. Three weird sisters do stir at a cauldron.

  WITCHES: Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.fn4

  WITCH 1: All hail Will Shakespeare. Owner of your house in Henley Street. Owner of a fine, new, suckling pig. And owner of New Place hereafter.

  WITCHES: (Cackling) Ha ha ha! Owner of New Place hereafter. Ha ha ha ha ha!

  The witches scuttle away, cackling most scarily.

  WILL: Well, that was a bit weird.

  KATE: Ever so.

  WILL: Such strange prophecy. But I am the owner of the house on Henley Street. But I have no new pig and I’m certainly not the owner of New Place.

  KIT MARLOWE: New Place?

  WILL: The second largest house in Stratford. Own water, extensive family area with room for second cow. Anne and I would kill for that house.

  A terrible squealing is heard.

  WILL: Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! What be that ghostly shriek?!

  Bottom doth enter, carrying a wounded suckling pig.

  BOTTOM: Just a bit of roadkill, master. ’Tis a fine suckling pig, still living.

  He hitteth the pig most violently.

  BOTTOM: Now dead. Good fortune indeed. Mrs Shakespeare’ll be thrilled to have a nice pig for supper.

  KATE: Well, that’s a bit blooming spooky, isn’t it?

  KIT MARLOWE: What?

  KATE: The witches’ prophecy. They knew you were owner of the house on Henley Street.

  KIT MARLOWE: Which you are.

  KATE: They said you’d own a pig.

  KIT MARLOWE: Which you now do.

  KATE: And then they said you’d be owner of New Place hereafter. Which you just said you’d kill for.

  KIT MARLOWE: Kate’s right, that is spooky!

  BOTTOM: Spooky!

  KATE: Spooky!

  WILL: Not spooky at all. And yet do I feel my spirits quicken within me. I would love to own New Place. Property is going crazy in Stratford right now.fn5

  Thunder thunders and lightning flashes.

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – NIGHT

  The entire Shakespeare family be assembled about the room. Will sitteth with Anne. Kate and Bottom are present.

  ANNE: Oh God, I’d love that house.

  MARY: It’s a common little hovel. When I was a girl, I lived in a manor house, but then I was an Arden and of noble birth.

  JOHN: Oh, shut up about your noble birth, woman!

  Kate hath cornered Susanna in her desire to become pals.

  KATE: What music do you like? I’m totally into madrigals.

  SUSANNA: They’re crap!fn6

  KATE: Yeah, no totally, so lame. Hate them. Shall we make a den and talk about female emancipation?

  SUSANNA: Who are you?

  KATE: Shall we have a midnight feast?

  SUSANNA: Argh!

  John Shakespeare doth sit by the fire ever warming his wrinkled and stinking arseington.

  JOHN: This New Place looks like a pretty good buy, Will. Put us Shakespeares back on the town map.

  MARY: After you comprehensively rubbed us off it.

  JOHN: Oh shut up, woman! It was only a bit of fiddling. You used to find it quite titillating till I got nabbed. Anyway, Will, what if those witches’ prophecy came true?

  KATE: Actually, I don’t think witches are witches at all. Just women who don’t fit in. Learned, creative, reluctant to accept the oppressive social and economic restraints forced upon their sex.

  SUSANNA: Er, what?

  KATE: Men find that threatening and so they burn them as witches. Totally obvious to me.

  WILL: Er, Kate, the three learned and creative women we encountered on the heath had huge hooked noses, numerous enormous warts, cackled incessantly and wore pointy hats. Exactly what part of not being a witch are you getting at here?fn7 Anyway, can we please stop talking about New Place. Duncan MacBuff owns it and I’m afraid I could never do business with him.

  JOHN: Don’t be soft, lad. Why not?

  WILL: Because he is Scottish and I am English, so no matter how much I pay or how generous the terms, he will still claim to have been given a raw deal and then bang on about it for ever.fn8

  Duncan MacBuff, a Scotsman, doth enter.

  MACBUFF: Ah, Mrs Shakespeare.

  ANNE: Speak of the devil.

  MACBUFF: I’ll trouble you for a jug of milk, unless being English you prefer to deny sustenance to a Scotsman.

  WILL: God, MacBuff, again with the victim thing! Let it go! What have you got to feel victimized about?

  MACBUFF: King Edward the First invading. His soldiers murdering William Wallace.

  WILL: It happened in 1296! Wallace was topped in 1305! When will you let it drop? God’s boobikins, at this rate you’ll still be banging on about William bloody Wallace in the next millennium.fn9

  MACBUFF: Longshanks did plenty cruel and bloody slaughter to innocent Scots.

  WILL: Well, it was your own fault. I’m sorry but painting yourself blue is just not a battle plan.

  MACBUFF: It made us look scary.

  WILL: It did not make you look scary, it made you look silly.

  MACBUFF: We pulverized you at Bannockburn.

  WILL: Absolutely, because I am three hundred years old and was there.

  MACBUFF: You dishonour a great and noble heritage, sir, but I expect nothing else from an Englishman. The milk, if you please?

  ANNE: You’re very welcome to go next door to Moll Sluttage, if you wish.

  MACBUFF: She is English too and so like you sees it as her birthright to cheat and abuse us Scots, who are, as the world knows, a decent, industrious, fair-minded and egalitarian people, in permanent occupation of the moral high ground. Thank God we’re a separate nation!

  WILL: Yes, well, I think we can all agree with you on that one, Mr MacBuff. And long may it remain so.

  ANNE: There’s your milk, Mr MacBuff.

  MACBUFF: I shall be back early morning before church for a second jug, unless being English you’ve murdered me in my bed for being Scottish.

  MacBuff departeth with his milk in high moral dudgeon.

  UPSTAIRS – NIGHT

  Will and Anne sitteth up in bed.

  ANNE: That Duncan MacBuff, he’s so bloody self-righteous it drives me potty. It’d serve him right if I di
d put water in his milk. Or worse.

  WILL: Hm? Worse?

  ANNE: Oh, it’d be so easy, too. There’s a bucket of white lead paint all ready to do the plaster on the half timbering. Do you see what I’m getting at?

  WILL: Anne, I’ve told you, I’ll get round to it! Just put it on my dad-job list.fn10

  ANNE: Some blokes’d just take the witches’ hint and kill the Caledonian bastable.

  WILL: Yes, well, fortunately I’m not some blokes, am I? I’m your husband, whom you do oft call Snugglington or Tiny Knob. And those be no names for a wild and dangerous killer.

  ANNE: Yeah, I know. Nice to think about, though. Lovely dream. Night.

  Anne doth sleep. Will sleeps also, but wakes. He has a vision, a milk jug floating in the air.

  WILL: Is this a milk jug which I see before me? (Reacheth for the vision) The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. (The handle moves away. Will follows it) I have thee not and yet I see thee still.

  Will takes a candle and leaves the room.fn11

  DOWNSTAIRS – NIGHT

  Will arrives in the living room and finds his vision of the glowing jug hovering on the table.

  WILL: I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw. Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going, and such an instrument I was to use. I see thee still. On thy spout and handle gouts of white paint containing lead, ready to do the outside plaster. (Takes up the paint pot and approaches the jug) Which is on my dad-job list that I keep meaning to get round to. (Pours the paint into the jug) The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.

  Lightning flashes, thunder thunders.

  UPSTAIRS – DAY

  Will awakes with a start. Anne also wakes.

  WILL: Wife, a terrible, terrible dream I had. Ah me, my hands be all gooey and covered in pale slop.

  His hands are indeed all gooey with pale slop.

  ANNE: Yes, well, you’ve had plenty of those dreams, Will. There’s no need to wake me up about it.