Upstart Crow

by Ben Elton

  Will, Anne and Bottom look shocked.

  WILL: Mr MacBuff, you’re – you’re alive!

  MACBUFF: Of course I’m alive! I’m Scottish. We’re more than alive! We are vibrant, creative, uniquely generous, strong, fair-minded, even-handed, good-humoured.

  WILL: Look, I … I saw you out cold in your parlour yesterday morning. I, I thought you were dead.

  MACBUFF: I was just having my morning nap after church. A big jug of milk always makes me sleepy and I get it all slopped over me.

  WILL: But the milk … I … I, I poured it from the …

  Will looks to where he thought the paint bucket was kept.

  ANNE: The milk bucket! That be Mrs Moomoo’s milk bucket, husband. And if you’re looking for the paint to do the plaster, it’s over here beside the wash tub.

  Anne picks up the paint bucket, which be brimming with paint.

  MACBUFF: Such milk, Mrs Shakespeare – full, creamy – I came to thank you. And as a neighbourly token, here is a gift of sweetmeats for the children.

  ANNE: Oh lovely!

  MACBUFF: Yeah, taken have I a solid base of nougatine, spread upon it burned caramel and enfolded all in a sweetened cocoa paste.fn23

  ANNE: Oh, that sounds utterly delicious.

  MACBUFF: Then dipped it in batter and deep-fried it.fn24

  ANNE: You see, now you’ve gone too far.

  MACBUFF: Ah, I bid you goodnight.

  MacBuff leaves.

  BOTTOM: No need to kill him for his house. Simply sit back and wait for him to die of a heart attack!

  ANNE: And be owners of New Place hereafter!fn25

  There is a terrible scream. Susanna entereth covered in red.

  SUSANNA: I can’t stand her any longer! She’s driven me mad! Mad, I tell you!

  WILL: Susanna, where is Kate?! Susanna, your hands be blood red! You’ve murdered Kate! Kate! Kate!

  Kate appears with a plate of strawberry pudding and a glass of red berry juice.

  KATE: Yes, Mr Shakespeare?

  Susanna takes up a knife most dramatically and doth grab Kate by the throat.

  SUSANNA: If you don’t get her away from me, I will murder her!

  KATE: We were just having a girly slumber party with strawberry pudding and raspberry lemonade, Mr Shakespeare, but I think Susanna might have had enough now.

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – NIGHT

  Will and Anne are sitting by the fire, smoking their pipes.

  ANNE: You know, it seems to me, husband, all these doings’d make a really good play.

  WILL: Yes, you’re right. Of course! A light and breezy comedy about a laughable misunderstanding over some milk.

  ANNE: Well, actually, I was thinking more of the weird sisters, the ghost at the feast, the conscience-struck wife endlessly washing her hands in the night. You know, a proper blood-and-guts thriller.

  WILL: No, no, I think comedy’s the way to go. ‘Two Milky Jugs’ by William Shakespeare.fn26

  EPISODE 6

  THE QUALITY OF MERCY

  There is no mention of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in this episode from the First Folio, but it is clear that its most famous scene was inspired by the events depicted here. The pound-of-flesh argument was not Will’s idea at all but Kate’s, and it seems it took place in a real courtroom. Frankly, this doesn’t make it remotely more plausible.

  MISS LUCY’S TAVERN – NIGHT

  The place be full and rollicking with blades and wenches. Will doth quaff with Marlowe.

  KIT MARLOWE: A toast, Will, a toast. To the age of exploration, and for once I’m paying. Every ship returning from the New World brings riches to Albion’s shore. Everyone’s coining it in!

  Lucy the tavern owner approacheth.

  LUCY: You’ve got that right, Kit. I’m making plenty gold myself. You should get a piece of it, Will. Timid bull don’t pleasure no cow.

  WILL: No thank you, Lucy, I’m aware that the city sharp boys in their Italian-designed tights are coining it big on the New World commodity market. Also that the occasional bonus even trickles down to smaller investors like yourselves. But I’m a conservative sort of bloke. I prefer to keep my money in my puffling pants.

  KIT MARLOWE: Rubbish! You told me you were investing in Burbage’s new theatre.

  WILL: Bricks and mortar, Kit. Very different. Solid. Respectable. Why invest in malodorous leaves and tuberous root vegetables from a mosquito swamp in north Virginia, when you can build here in London? Using bricks made of solid dung and straw.

  KIT MARLOWE: Well, it’s your loss, mate. Robert Greene is setting up a syndicate to buy the cargo off the next ship that docks. He needs investors and this fella’s in.

  LUCY: Me too. I’m saving up to buy a warship so I can cruise the Ivory Coast freeing slaves.

  WILL: I’ve often wondered how you won your own freedom, Lucy. Perchance I’ll immortalize the story in a play.

  LUCY: I bribed my way out with a diamond ring, which I cut from the man who first stole me from my home.

  WILL: Goodness, you cut off his finger?!

  LUCY: It wasn’t on his finger.fn1

  Lucy doth clear the empties and depart.

  WILL: Thoroughly invigorating woman. I’d miss her if she did go off and be a lady pirate.

  The odious Robert Greene who hateth Will’s gutlings approaches.

  ROBERT GREENE: Ah … quid agis, Marlowe?fn2

  KIT MARLOWE: Omne bene, gratias, Greene.fn3

  ROBERT GREENE: Ni illud velum sic habis bonum mane, Shakespeare.fn4

  WILL: Er … er … er … Wait, I know this … um …

  ROBERT GREENE: Ah, yes. I was forgetting, you speak but little Latin. Sad. Come now, Marlowe, have you money for your investment? I would fain not stay a moment longer in these immoral surroundings than I must.

  LUCY: Hey, Mr Greene. Here again so soon?

  Greene be covered in blushes and confusion.

  LUCY: You are a naughty boy.

  ROBERT GREENE: I know not what you mean. I am here to speak to Mr Marlowe. ’Tis true I occasionally visit this establishment, but only in order to raise up fallen women with Bible reading.

  LUCY: It is unlike you to take the missionary position.

  Lucy doth depart.

  ROBERT GREENE: The money, Marlowe. Da mihi pecunia.fn5

  KIT MARLOWE: Hic pecunia mea.fn6 Bung that on whatever’s in the next ship.

  ROBERT GREENE: Mr Shakespeare, vis ad obsedendam in unico tempores opportunitate?fn7

  WILL: Erm, vis … that’s ‘would’ …

  KIT MARLOWE: He’s asking if you wanna invest.

  WILL: Oh er, right, well, er, non ego non … non … quid … tibby … keepus cashus …

  ROBERT GREENE: No matter. Most of the cargo is already sold. The sacks of potatoes are spoken for, likewise the bags of tobacco. Before long the only thing left on that boat will be a couple of cases of syphilis sive morbus gallicus.fn8

  Greene and Marlowe do laugh most merrily.

  KIT MARLOWE: Oh, sorry, Will. You wouldn’t get it, Latin joke. Need to have gone to Cambridge.fn9

  WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY

  Will sits.

  WILL: Deum, daem, dadum, dadum, da-bloody-dum! It’s no good, Kate. It won’t stay in that which supports a hat but be not a hook, has a crown but be not a king and is fringed with hair but be not my bolingbrokes.

  KATE: Pardon?

  BOTTOM: He means his head, love.

  KATE: You will, Mr Shakespeare. You will! You already have your schoolboy Latin to build on. I taught myself from scratch.

  WILL: Mm, yes, but I think it’s easier for girls. Their heads being otherwise so empty that there’s more room to learn things.

  KATE: Yes, because that’s really logical.fn10

  BOTTOM: I dunno why you care anyway. I mean, how many dead Romans are you gonna be chatting with?

  WILL: Apart from the obvious social advantages of knowing Latin, all legal documents are writ in the language of the Caesars. If I�
��m to be a theatre owner, I must be able to read the contracts.

  KATE: Theatre owner? Such an exciting idea, Mr Shakespeare!

  WILL: Isn’t it? Yes. Burbage must move his productions to south of the river to escape the wrath of the God-prodding Pure-titties who run the city.fn11

  KATE: Oh, I hate those God-prodding Pure-titties. They’re so grim. There’s no singing, no dancing—

  WILL: Yes and, most crucially, no point. I search the Bible in vain for the passage that tells us that putting horseshoe nails on the inside of your codpiece will give you a front-row cloud in heaven. Still, the Pure-titties’ righteous fury could be the making of me, for Burbage has asked me to come in with him as investor and producer.

  KATE: Such a joyful happenstance.

  WILL: And, what’s more, he has hinted that if I can but finish my great teen romance in time, it will open the new house.

  BOTTOM: But why don’t you just tell him it’s finished?

  WILL: Because it isn’t.

  BOTTOM: Well, it is if you want it to be. Liberate yourself, just stop writing. Put a big full stop and you’re done.

  WILL: But nothing will be concluded of plot or character.

  BOTTOM: Trust me, no one’ll notice. They’re not really following anyway.fn12 Your plays are too long. I mean Richard the Third was nearly four hours! That’s just wrong.fn13

  WILL: People cheered.

  BOTTOM: Yeah, they were glad it was over! Didn’t you get that?

  WILL: Bottom, your barbs do bite most bitterly.

  BOTTOM: Well, no one else’ll tell you except me. You give ’em too much.

  WILL: Kate, you don’t agree with this, do you?

  KATE: Well, they are quite long, Mr Shakespeare. I mean it’s all great, it’s just sometimes less is more.

  BOTTOM: Short play’s a good play. You don’t want Juliet’s balls dropping halfway through the balcony scene.

  WILL: Well, that’s true, and ’tis ever a danger with these beardless youths that we must employ to play the ladies.fn14

  KATE: Of course, if an actual girl were playing the role …

  BOTTOM: Oh God, here we go! Would you let it drop, woman?! Girls can’t act.

  WILL: No, no, Bottom. I confess, I’m beginning to come round to Kate’s way of thinking. I would love to hear my Juliet in the true voice of a maid. Sadly, we’re constrained by law.

  KATE: So frustrating! A woman may not disport herself onstage for fear she be thought a trollop.

  WILL: It does seem silly, but there it is. If ever I’m to hope to sneak you into Burbage’s company, it must be in disguise. You must make him believe that you be that which though it have teats have no breasts, and though it have balls be not a game of tennis.

  KATE: You mean a man, right?

  WILL: Yes, I mean a man.

  BOTTOM: A bit tortured that one if I’m honest, master.

  WILL: You have to let ’em roll and then edit later.fn15 Now, I must be on my way. I am to meet Burbage to discuss our great venture.

  KATE: Let me come.

  WILL: You, Kate? How so?

  KATE: I speak Latin, I understand compound interest. I can be your secretary.

  WILL: But you’re a girl. Girls can’t be secretaries, it’s unheard of.

  KATE: Exactly! And so I shall come disguised as a man. And if I can do that without discovery, then surely I can audition as a boy to play Juliet?

  WILL: Well, I suppose I could do with a Latin speaker on my team.

  BOTTOM: Oh no! I don’t like this at all. This is just rubbish, this is.

  WILL: You have an objection, Bottom?

  BOTTOM: Yes, I have got a flippin’ objection! I can’t read, I can’t write, I own nothing and I’m sewn into my underwear, but at least I’ve got more rights and status than any bloomin’ bird. You start edging women into the workplace, then where’s that gonna leave all of us pig-ignorant blokes?fn16

  THE RED LION THEATRE – DAY

  Will and Kate do enter most furtively, Kate dressed in the clothing of a boy.

  WILL: Now, Kate, be ever vigilant. The tiniest mistake can see you unmasked as a weak and timorous girlie.

  KATE: What sort of mistake? Any hints?

  WILL: Well, do not under any circumstances discuss your feelings.

  KATE: Not discuss feelings? What do men talk about?

  WILL: Sex, beer and sport. On the subject of feelings – if a rehearsal begins, do not cry at the sad bits. And if blood sports be suggested and a pack of dogs be set upon a tethered goat for fun, you must cry, ‘Kill, kill!’ not, ‘But he looks so sweet. Why do we have to hurt him?’

  KATE: And of course there’s the most important factor of all in pretending to be a man.

  WILL: What’s that?

  KATE: I must ne’er be seen to perform a multitude of tasks all at the same moment. For ’tis a fact well known that men cannot perform a multitude of tasks all at the same moment.

  WILL: Actually, that’s a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of you girls. In fact, men can perform a multitude of tasks all at the same moment. We just prefer to sit around drinking beer.fn17

  Burbage, Condell and Kempe enter, full strutting and proud.

  BURBAGE: So, Master Shakespeare, we come as promised to discuss plans for our new theatre. And who’s this?

  WILL: Cuthbert, my secretary. A young fellow who would make a life in the theatre.

  KATE: Oh, you bunch of hugger-tuggers, anyone get any minge last night? Wahey, I love minge!fn18

  BURBAGE: Seems a very pleasant fellow, Will. Come and sit down, Cuthbert. I tell you what, perhaps later on we’ll go bearbaiting, eh?

  KATE: Brilliant! And I certainly won’t cry!

  BURBAGE: So, Will, as you know the God-prodding Pure-titties in the city have forced our company beyond London’s walls. So we plan to build south of the river in Southwark.

  WILL: Yes, England’s first purpose-built theatre. Think of it, Burbage, we’re actually inventing the form.

  BURBAGE: Absolutely. It falls upon us to lay the very foundation stone of theatre architecture. So, a playhouse. What is it?

  CONDELL: A big space for people to stand in.

  BURBAGE: Yes, that’s a good beginning. (Doth make the mark of an ‘O’ upon the paper in front of him) Yes, what else? What else?

  KEMPE: Stage at one end, probably.

  BURBAGE: A stage for certain, a stage. (Doth mark a stage within the ‘O’)

  WILL: This is so exciting. And since our building will be only for the production of plays and not also for boozing and bearbaiting as has been the custom to date, there’s no limit to the effects we can install. Traps, drapes, screens. With such devices great battles and mighty tempests can be presented.fn19

  KEMPE: Yeah, but really? Not sure.

  BURBAGE: You have an observation to make, Kempe?

  KEMPE: Just sayin’, but battles? Tempests? A bit dated? Wrong thing to say? Brr, don’t care, said it now, so …

  CONDELL: Dated, Kempe?

  KEMPE: Not gonna lie. All that shouting. All that, ‘Oh I’m a king and my army’s all dead.’ That’s not relatable. That’s not interesting.

  WILL: Then what do you suggest?

  KEMPE: Well, instead of setting the big scene in a battle, why not set it in … a king’s counting house?

  WILL: In an office?

  KEMPE: (Nods) Observational, see? Minimal is the new epic, yeah? Instead of having heroic characters struggling with war and murder, they could all be really ordinary and worried about really tiny things, like, ‘Oh, did you use my quill?’ ‘Ah, was that your quill?’ ‘Well, yeah, that was my quill. It’s got my name on it.’ ‘Oh, sorry.’ ‘Well, you can borrow it, if you ask, maybe. Please respect my stuff.’ That sort of thing. It’d be brilliant.

  BURBAGE: Do shut up, Kempe.

  CONDELL: We must consider the auditorium too. We’ll need a toilet, methinks. Will’s plays be very long.

  BURBAGE: Very, very long.

  KEMPE:
Incredibly long, like mad long.

  WILL: They’re not long!fn20

  BURBAGE: A bit long, Will. (Once more doth make his mark upon the plan) Yes, we’ll definitely need a big trench out the back to piss in.

  KATE: And numerous closeted stalls for the ladies. Twenty or thirty, I’d say, otherwise there’ll be a queue.

  BURBAGE: The ladies? You think we should cover for them?

  KATE: Well, of course. While there be no ladies onstage, many do attend the play.

  BURBAGE: Yes, well, I suppose we could knock up a little shed and put a bucket in it. (Doth mark the plan with a crude depiction of a bucket in a shed) So … the conveniences – a twenty-yard pissoir for the men and a single bucket in a cupboard for the ladies.

  KATE: But, Mr Burbage, a single stall? Surely you can see that in times of greatest traffic, such as the interval, a large queue will form of angry ladies with their legs crossed. Remember, sirrah, that what we design here today will set the pattern for theatres across future centuries.fn21

  BURBAGE: So, as I say, a twenty-yard pissoir for the men and a single bucket in a cupboard for the ladies.

  WILL: (Whispers) Have a care, young Kate, for your outrageous special pleading for your own sex will unmask you!

  KATE: It’s just so unfair!

  BURBAGE: Right, lunch. I have a meat pie.

  Burbage takes from his satchel a fine meat pie.

  KEMPE: Meat pie.

  CONDELL: Meat pasty.

  WILL: Meat pie.

  All do produce their meaty repasts. Kate, however, produces naught but vegetables, green leaves and bright petals.

  KATE: And I’ve made a lovely little salad, which you’re all welcome to pick at. Just some fresh leaves and carrot goujons. Also some rose petals just for scent and colour, but you can eat them.fn22

  Condell doth throw down his pie in fury.

  CONDELL: You’re a bloody girl, aren’t you? An ambitious little bitchington trying to steal my job!

  KATE: No! Minge! Flange! Anal!

  Kate doth shock even herself with this last laddish allusion.

  BURBAGE: We get one like you every fortnight. Silly little girls pretending to be boys, in the pathetic hope that they’ll be as good at being girls as boys are.