Upstart Crow

by Ben Elton

  BOTTOM: Brilliant! That’s one of me favourites. I couldn’t think how you were going to get it into the plot.

  WILL: Well, that’s the job, Bottom. Grab the hits and crowbar them in with a wafer-thin pretence of relevance. Then reprise the lot at the end in a great big sing-along.

  BOTTOM: Can’t wait to see how you fit in ‘Flora, Wilt Thou Torment Me?’

  WILL: Well, I thought about having a character called Flora whose love torments him. Or I could just make it a song about hay fever.

  THE RED LION THEATRE – DAY

  Morley sits at his clavichord. The players rehearse. Will attends.

  BURBAGE: ‘Alone! Cut off! No friends, no shelter!’ Do you think I have your voice, Mr Morley?

  THOMAS MORLEY: Brilliant, geezer. It’s all so true. I was down, I was out. I mean, my parents were supporting me, obviously. But I had to take a summer job to buy my first lute.fn20

  WILL: Perhaps we could get to the end of the scene.

  THOMAS MORLEY: Sorry, geezer. Just loving it.

  WILL: Enter Mr Condell as Flora, Tommy’s childhood sweetheart.

  THOMAS MORLEY: My first bird was called Gladys.

  WILL: In which case you might have thought to write a madrigal called ‘Gladys, Wilt Thou Torment Me?’ But since you didn’t, we’ll just stick to the script, eh?

  THOMAS MORLEY: All right, geezer. Just loving your work.

  WILL: And music …

  THOMAS MORLEY: Two, three, four …

  Mr Condell doth dance and sing most prettily.

  CONDELL: Arise, get up, my dear, arise. / My dear, make haste to be gone thee, / Lo where the bride, lo where the bride, faire Daphne, bright, / Where the bride faire Daphne bright tarries on thee.fn21

  THOMAS MORLEY: I am loving this.

  THE RED LION THEATRE – NIGHT

  ’Tis the first night of Will’s musical. A packed crowd are cheering the finale.

  BURBAGE: Come on, London. One more time!

  The cast lead the audience swaying their hands in the air.

  ALL SING: Fa-lala-la-la-lala-la-la. Fa-lala-la-la. Fa-lala-la-la-la. Fa-lala-la-la-laaaaa!

  The audience cheer and shout. It is verily a hit. But Robert Greene doth spy at the window most wickedly. ’Tis clear he has a plan.

  MISS LUCY’S TAVERN – NIGHT

  All do celebrate the night’s success.

  BURBAGE: More ale, Miss Lucy! The first preview was a smash. They loved it.

  LUCY: They certainly did, Mr Burbage. Everyone says they are going to go again and again.

  All raise their glasses and cheer.

  LUCY: A-a, eh-eh. You should do an African musical next. Eh? My people have wonderful music using polyphonic ostinato. Also call-and-response choral rhythms. Oh, you could do a story about a lion cub who can’t wait to be king.fn22

  WILL: I can’t really see people wanting to watch a story like that, Lucy.

  BURBAGE: And besides which, the theatre is full. Norwich Boy will run for ever!

  ALL: Hurray!

  Robert Greene doth enter, all wicked malevolence.

  ROBERT GREENE: Its run is already over, Mr Burbage. Today’s preview was the first and last performance.

  BURBAGE: Just how do you intend to stop us, Master Greene?

  ROBERT GREENE: Why, by abusing my power and my position, of course. All men crave social status, particularly lowly artists.

  WILL: Oh, I get it. I’ll handle this, Burbage. So, Master Greene, you see that I have a hit and in your jealousy are come as Master of Heralds to offer noble rank in exchange for pulling the show.

  ROBERT GREENE: Well, ’tis certain a gentleman could ne’er be associated with such an endeavour as this.

  WILL: Sorry, Greene, but it won’t work. I would love for my father to gain his family coat of arms, which is his dearest wish of all. But sod him. I will not cancel my greatest hits musical.

  ALL: Hurrah!

  ROBERT GREENE: Mr Shakespeare, you misunderstand me. This is not about you.

  Thomas Morley enters the scene.

  THOMAS MORLEY: Sorry, geezer, I’m pulling the gig. You can’t use my songs.

  BURBAGE: But, Tomster, we have a hit. Surely there’s nothing that a-rocking and a-roistering popular music star wants more than a hit.

  ROBERT GREENE: Well, there is one thing, Mr Burbage. Unfortunately I was able to recommend to the Queen that he gets it. Was I not, Sir Tommy?fn23

  THOMAS MORLEY: Very nice. Very tasteful. Loving that.

  WILL: Knighted? Him? But the bloke’s a shameless tax avoider.

  THOMAS MORLEY: I’ve done a lot of work for charity.

  ROBERT GREENE: Yes, the knighthood is principally for Sir Tommy’s charity work.

  THOMAS MORLEY: Which I’ve done a lot of.

  WILL: What? What bloody charity work? We never get told, do we?

  THOMAS MORLEY: Couple of posh galas for the orphans. The occasional sumptuous dinner for the starving.

  WILL: So you’re being knighted for avoiding tax and showing off.

  ROBERT GREENE: Yes, I think that is generally considered to be the proper heraldic process.

  WILL: God, I hate this sceptred bloody isle.

  ROBERT GREENE: Sir Tommy understands the ways of the world, Mr Shakespeare. Because, you see, he is a gentleman. Something nor you, nor your father, will ever be. Good day.

  THOMAS MORLEY: I just want to make music, man.

  Robert Greene and the Tomster exit.

  BURBAGE: Will, we cannot let the theatre go dark. We’ll be ruined.

  WILL: Well, we could just do the play straight with lengthy monologues instead of songs.

  BURBAGE: I suppose we have no choice. But what would you call it?

  WILL: ‘A Comedy of Mistakes, Misunderstandings and Coincidences.’

  BURBAGE: Basically, it’s just a comedy of errors.

  WILL: Errors. Oh, I like that. That’s good. I’ll use that. ‘A Comedy of Mistakes, Misunderstandings, Coincidences and Errors.’ Brilliant.fn24

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – DAY

  The family do sit about. Will enters.

  WILL: God, it’s good to be home. Home to the gentle, welcoming bosom of my family.

  ANNE: You missed Hamnet’s Latin.

  JOHN: You didn’t get my coat of arms.

  WILL: Guilty as charged, but I did get something for Susanna. It’s an undershirt signed by Tommy Morley.

  SUSANNA: Don’t like him any more. He sold out.

  WILL: How so, my love?

  SUSANNA: He did a musical.fn25

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – NIGHT

  Will and Anne sit with their pipes before the fire.

  WILL: Well, we put on A Comedy of Errors without songs and despite everyone’s doubts, it’s actually a big hit.

  ANNE: Well, that’s nice. Maybe you were just a bit ahead of your time, trying to invent the musical.

  WILL: You’re probably right, wife. Still, it was fun for a night. People gathered together, singing, laughing, waving their arms in the air. Just having a joyful night out.

  ANNE: What’s wrong with that?

  WILL: What indeed? I hope that one day in some future age, London will be full of theatres, and they’ll all have musicals in them. ’Tis a joyful dream.

  ANNE: Or a living nightmare.

  WILL: Yes, I suppose opinion will always be divided on that one.

  EPISODE 5

  BEWARE MY STING!

  The following episode tells the story of Shakespeare writing The Taming of the Shrew. In the modern age, when the issue of male entitlement and sexual harassment is finally and properly at the forefront of the national conversation, it seems unlikely that Shakespeare’s appalling ‘comedy’ of sexism and sexual abuse will ever be staged again. Unless, of course, someone chooses to play the ‘irony’ card.

  WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY

  Will doth sit at table before a large pie.

  WILL: Bottom, bring me a hammer and a cold chisel. This pie crust
be so too tough, pixie cobblers could use the crumbs to fashion the fairies’ dancing shoes.

  Bottom respondeth most grumpishly.

  BOTTOM: You could always try cooking a pie yourself, of course.

  WILL: Yes, Bottom, or a third way would be for me to employ a servant whose skill set comes slightly closer to matching their job description.

  KATE: Let me bring you a sharper knife, Mr Shakespeare. Hold, sirrah! Parry! Advance! Hold! (Advanceth upon Will holding a table knife in fencing mode) Stage fighting is a key skill in the actor’s armoury.

  WILL: Hmmm, yes, for ‘skill’ read two mincing preeners slowly circling each other while occasionally hitting their swords together with a big clang.fn1

  KATE: So exciting.

  WILL: I know you long to play the ingénue in my still unfinished teen romance, but girls be banned from acting.

  KATE: But it’s so obvious that real girls would be better at playing girls.

  BOTTOM: Yeah, cos that’s just really logical, isn’t it?

  KATE: Um, yes!

  BOTTOM: Maybe you think we should get real kings to play the kings? Or real ancient Romans to play the ancient Romans.

  KATE: Um, that’s not quite the same …

  BOTTOM: Or real witches to play the witches.

  KATE: I get what you are trying to—

  BOTTOM: Or a real St George for St George and the dragon, and a real dragon. Real armies for the battles, real fairies for the enchanted woods. Theseus and the Minotaur? Where are we going to find a minotaur?

  KATE: Yes, all right, Bottom! I get it.

  BOTTOM: Yeah, and you know I am right too. Besides which, a girl onstage would be nothing but a proslington and a whoreslap.

  KATE: Oh, another brilliant argument, Bottom, because delivering blank verse in the character of a dead queen is obviously just code for ‘Hello, ducks, I’ll fondle your fandangles for a farthing’.

  BOTTOM: Dirty talk won’t win your argument.

  KATE: Finish your great teen romance, Mr Shakespeare. Let me be your Juliet.

  WILL: No, Kate. Quite apart from anything else, I just don’t think the public wants to see a love story.

  KATE: Certainly not one like your Two Gentlemen of Verona, where the hero brazenly cheats on the heroine and you yet have her marrying the hornsome bastable anyway.

  WILL: I needed a happy ending.

  KATE: Well, it might have been nice if it had developed out of plot and character instead of simply being nailed on at the end.

  WILL: I’faith the maid is right; I did just nail it on at the end.fn2 (Doth turn away, speaking in the manner of an aside) I canst only hope the verse with which I nailed it be so obscure that future generations trusting in my genius will just think they are being stupid and have missed something.fn3 (Turneth to Kate once more) Look I’m … I’m sorry, Kate, I know you want to play Julian.

  KATE: Juliet.

  WILL: As I said, Juliet, and I would love to see the play performed but as you know it’s a work in progress. I’ve got my double-death ending but much else remains unwrit.fn4 For instance, I need a lot more lines for the amusing nurse.

  BOTTOM: No, don’t do it, master. Less lines. Trust me. Kate read me a bit. The nurse really gets on me nerves.

  KATE: She could be getting a teeny bit irritating with her endless clucky duckyness, Mr Shakespeare.

  WILL: Which is why she needs more lines. You know my rule: if you are in a comedy hole, keep digging.fn5 I’m not going to do it now, it’s a romance and I can’t risk a kissy-wissy, gropy-pokey load of soppy old mushington right now. My next play must be a smasheroo. You know my dream.

  KATE: To be recognized now and for all time as indisputably the greatest writer that ever lived and to buy the second biggest house in Stratford.

  WILL: Exactly. That’s it in a nutshell.

  BOTTOM: In a nutshell? What does that mean?

  WILL: Oh, ’tis just one of the numerous inspired phrases which I’m wont to coin and which I am confident will enter the common idiom.

  BOTTOM: Well, good luck with ‘in a nutshell’ cos I think it’s stupid. I mean, you couldn’t really get anything at all inside a nutshell cos they are very, very small and also full of nuts. Clue’s in the name.

  WILL: Your observations, Bottom, are neither here nor there.

  KATE: Is that another one?

  WILL: Yes, just invented it. When it comes to language, the world’s mine oyster. In fact, I’m so clever I could end up with too much of a good thing.

  KATE: Maybe you should stop now.

  WILL: Can’t. They just pop up all of a sudden but, give the devil his due, there’s method in my madness.

  KATE: Really, stop it.

  WILL: Why ’tis a foregone conclusion that they’ll leave you bedazzled and in stitches and before long you will be demanding more with bated breath.

  BOTTOM: The world’s your oyster? Why would that be a good thing?

  WILL: Tad obscure, er … what the dickens! I’ll spoil my spotless reputation. Must be tired; I didn’t sleep one wink. If I’m not careful, you’ll send me packing on a wild goose chase and I’ll vanish into thin air or be dead as a doornail.

  KATE: Stop it. I really mean it. You are very clever, Mr Shakespeare, but you can be an awful show-off.

  WILL: But with a heart of gold.

  KATE: No! Just a show-off.

  WILL: Ay, there’s the rub.

  KATE: Stop it. And actually I happen to know you didn’t originate the phrase ‘dead as a doornail’.

  WILL: I bloomin’ did.

  KATE: You bloomin’ didn’t. William Langland did in his Middle English allegorical narrative poem Piers Plowman.

  WILL: (To self) In faith, the bothersome girl is right. Filched have I some of my finest phrases from prior sources and common usage. I can only hope that as the years go by the original derivation will fade from memory and I’ll get all the credit.

  KATE: But never mind Langland, we were talking about you writing a new play.

  WILL: Yes, but I am sorry but it’s not going to be my teen romance. I need to design a hit. Women love theatre so of course I must write a heroine that will appeal to them. Gutsy.

  KATE: I like that.

  WILL: Tough and independent.

  KATE: I love that.

  WILL: Witty and headstrong.

  KATE: Feisty.

  WILL: Feisty, Kate? I know not what you mean. Be it a foreign term?

  KATE: No, I am doing what you do, creating a new word. ‘Feisty’, to refer to a gutsy, independent, headstrong woman.

  WILL: Hmm, not sure.

  KATE: It’s brilliant. In fact, I am a bit worried it will end up getting overused to the point of banality, eventually being appropriated by any loud-mouthed harridan who seeks to lend an empowering gloss to being a gobby bitchslap.fn6

  WILL: Hmm, perhaps best leave new words to me, Kate, because ‘feisty’ just ain’t gonna fly.

  KATE: Well, however she’s referred to, you are going to create a strong woman who is both strong and a woman. Bravo.

  WILL: Yes, and then I am going to crush, abuse and humiliate her.

  KATE: Crush, abuse? But why?

  WILL: Because while women may love the theatre, ’tis men who pay for entry. Thus have I in mind a sort of battle of the sexes where a strong woman is tamed by a man.

  KATE: I have no words.

  WILL: Yes, well, luckily, Kate, that’s my job.

  MISS LUCY’S TAVERN – DAY

  Kate and Lucy sit at a table in the tavern.

  KATE: I have come to see you, Mistress Lucy, because you are a strong woman. You have independence, your own business. How did you do it?

  LUCY: I cut off the penis of the cur who enslaved me, stole his gold, jumped ship at Tilbury and bought a pub.

  KATE: I am not sure any of that will help me get on to the stage.

  LUCY: Pah! Lady acting is against the law, Kate, because the law hates women. Your only hope is to do as I did: use a man to get wh
at you need. Oh ho! Will Shakespeare is your friend.

  KATE: You think I should cut off Mr Shakespeare’s penis?

  LUCY: No, no, no, just get him to help you. Persuade him to write a sublime female lead and convince him that only you can play it.

  KATE: Oh yes, but how?

  LUCY: Ah, ah, eh, eh. Kate, you are a woman. A woman has special skills to move a man.

  KATE: Wait, you think I should embroider him a cushion cover? I suppose it might work.

  WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – DAY

  The family be present. Will doth enter.

  WILL: Home am I, wife, let joy be unbounded. Father has returned.

  ANNE: Good journey, love?

  WILL: Well, it’s funny you should say that, Anne, because you know how up until now I’ve never, ever had a good journey?

  ANNE: Yes.

  WILL: Well, amazingly, I still haven’t. I had to stand the whole way. Two days with my face in the armpit of a man who appeared to be actually sweating urine. I am knackmungled. Susanna, bring ale and pie.

  SUSANNA: Get it yourself. Leave me alone, I want to die. Shut up.

  ANNE: Don’t mind her, Will. (Whispering) She’s a bit more sensitive than usual. She hath taken up that burden which every woman must carry at the journey of each moon.

  WILL: Oh I see. (Loudly) Mum says you started your periods, Sue.

  SUSANNA: Shut up!

  WILL: What? What did I say?

  ANNE: God’s bouncing boobingtons, husband! For a bloke who reckons himself to be the world’s greatest poet you’ve got about as much tact and sensitivity as Mrs Moomoo’s flatumongous arseington.

  MARY: She’s not talking about Susanna’s women’s business anyway. It’s her character. The girl is totally out of control.

  ANNE: She’s so gutsy and headstrong.

  WILL: Feisty.

  ANNE: Ooo, that’s a really good word for it. A new one of yours?

  WILL: (Shiftily) Yes. Just trying it out.

  MARY: Well, she’s feisty all right, and ’tis not a goodling look for a maid.

  John Shakespeare be ever sat upon the privy pot.