by Ben Elton
In the audience the men cheer while the women grimace.
KIT MARLOWE: Hear, hear! It’s brilliant!
KATE: I think I’m gonna be sick.
CONDELL: ‘And when she is forward, peevish, sullen, sour, and not obedient to his honest will, what is she but a foul contending rebel and graceless traitor to her loving lord?’
The men do applaud. The women look glum.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – NIGHT
Will sitteth at table. Kate brings him beer.
WILL: Well, my Shrew was a huge hit but I take little pleasure in it for it has cost me the good opinion of two women whose respect I value. Yours, for one.
KATE: I still respect you, Mr Shakespeare, for although I think your play doth sorely insult women, you are a creature of your times, and in truth even now your misogyny be less offensive than most. At least you take trouble to write your women some fine verse.fn21
WILL: And you do realize that the last big speech in the play, the one where Katherine calls on women to worship and obey their husbands, it’s supposed to be ironic. I … I mean … I … I mean that’s clear, isn’t it?
KATE: Mr Shakespeare, please. Did you really write it ironically or are you hoping that in later, more enlightened ages scholars will try to get you off the hook by pretending that’s what you intended?
WILL: Well, you know – either way.
KATE: But, intrigued am I, who is the other woman whose respect you fear you’ve lost?
WILL: Why, my lovely Sue. She knows ’twas her who inspired my Shrew and is hurt most mortally. I would fain make amends but I know not how.
KATE: Well, just because a girl is feisty and full of spirit like your Sue, doesn’t mean she values not romance. You should write another play. One featuring a sensitive, articulate, headstrong, tragic, beautiful, captivating, feisty maid of Susanna’s age.
WILL: All right, Kate, you win. I’ll finish Romeo and Julian.
KATE: Juliet?
WILL: Juliet, yes.
WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – NIGHT
Will and Anne do sit before the fire with their pipes.
ANNE: I didn’t find your Shrew play too offensive when I saw it. I thought it was quite funny, actually, if you just see it as a load of illogical, stupid, potty old bolingbrokes.fn22
WILL: Thank you, wife. That’s a lovely thing to say.
ANNE: And it’s nice to have a stonking great hit raking in the cash.
Susanna doth enter. She holds a script.
SUSANNA: Dad, Juliet’s beautiful.
WILL: Really, daughter? I … I … remember you once saying nobody talked like that.
SUSANNA: I was thirteen, you know. I’m fourteen now. I’m mature. And I just love it.
WILL: The end not too sad?
SUSANNA: Er, of course it’s too sad. It’s endlessly sad, heart-breaking, eternally sad. I love it. And you really based Juliet on me?
WILL: Well, yes, absolutely. You know, you’re a girl and Juliet’s a girl so … direct lift really.
EPISODE 6
SWEET SORROW
In this last episode of the Second Crow Folio we see Shakespeare finally completing and staging his immortal teen snog fest Romeo and Juliet. That he only completed it as a result of the machinations of his landlady’s daughter is a new and fascinating revelation, as is the sex of the first ever Romeo.
MISS LUCY’S TAVERN – NIGHT
The players, Marlowe and Will do quaff ale served by Miss Lucy.
BURBAGE: Our new theatre be scarcely built, yet already the God-prodding Pure-titties on the city council petitioned Our Majesty for its closure. They say it be nothing but a den of debauchery. Ha!fn1
LUCY: Hmm. I have seen more debauchery at the Eokoto e-kule.
WILL: The Eokoto e-kule, Lucy?
LUCY: Mm. The Maasai milk-drinking ceremony, in which a strong and virile young warrior is allowed to drink milk by himself for the first time since his circumcision. Oh oh, it is a very boring ceremony. Bah! But not as boring as Henry the Sixth Part Three.fn2
WILL: Ha ha! You jest, of course. Hard to see how a five-act, forty-seven-character play written entirely in blank verse about a third of the life of a lesser-known Henry could be described as boring. Still, I do agree. It is a puzzle how the city council justify their charge that putting on my plays will result in the use of prostitutes.
KIT MARLOWE: Sometimes it’s just the only way to stay awake during the last act.
BURBAGE: Point is, that is their charge. Once more, we’re in desperate need of a titled patron.
LUCY: Eh eh. I thought you were the Lord Chamberlain’s men?
BURBAGE: Sadly no longer, Lucy. He is fearful of the Pure-titties and has withdrawn his favour.
KIT MARLOWE: What about that young Henry Southampton? I mean, he hates the Pure-titties and would love to snook their cocks. You know him well. That posh boy you used to fancy.
WILL: I did not fancy him. I merely happened to mention in passing that he was lovelier than a summer’s day and that his eternal beauty would live as long as men still breathed and had eyes to see. Entirely ambiguous lines, I think you’ll agree, and not remotely suggestive of a deeply personal and agonizing private passion. I really had hoped that this whole silly idea that I be part hugger-tugger might have done its dash by now.fn3
KIT MARLOWE: Yes, I kind of think that one’s going to hang around, mate. Look, I see young Southie on the dilly from time to time. I can ask him if you like.
WILL: Won’t do any good. He hates the theatre. Can’t stand histories.
BURBAGE: What about one of your romantic comedies?
WILL: Hates them more. He’s an incorrigible romantic and resents the way the theatre only ever uses love as a source of fun.
KIT MARLOWE: Well, why not write a romantic tragedy? Might lure him in.
BURBAGE: Romantic tragedy? No, it’s never been done.
WILL: That’s right, Burbage. But doing what’s never been done is exactly what I do. For instance, this morning, I came up with three entirely original words: multitudinous, newfangled and scuffle.fn4
KIT MARLOWE: I don’t know what the world’d do without you, mate.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY
Will doth converse with Kate and Bottom.
WILL: And so you see, Kate, ’tis finally time to present my teen romance.
KATE: So exciting. English theatre’s first proper romantic tragedy, and is all complete?
WILL: Pretty much. Although I’m still not entirely happy with the balcony scene. Something tells me it’s going to be a biggie. What do you think? ‘Goodnight, goodnight. Parting is just so boring that I could say goodnight till it be morning.’
KATE: I like the intention. She’s sad because her love must leave, but she’s only sad because she loves. It’s a sort of sweet sorrow.
Will doth jot down this phrase most surreptitiously.
WILL: You literally read my thoughts.
KATE: Such an honour.
WILL: ‘Goodnight, goodnight. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Mustn’t grumble. Mustn’t wallow.’ Nailed it.
KATE: I’m not really sure about the second bit.
WILL: You’re right, of course. It’s missing two iambic beats. How about, ‘Mustn’t flipping wallow’?fn5
KATE: It’s not really the scansion. I just preferred your idea about looking forward to the glad morning. Uplifting, hopeful. Like a young girl’s love.
WILL: Yes, but morning doesn’t rhyme with sorrow.
BOTTOM: Morrow does.
WILL: As I was about to say, Bottom.
BOTTOM: Don’t think you were.
WILL: I most definitely was. ‘Goodnight, goodnight, parting is such sweet sorrow that I could say goodnight till it be morrow.’
KATE: Brilliant.
BOTTOM: The last word is the best bit.
WILL: I’m loving this conflicted-emotion sweet-sorrow stuff I came up with. I think I should use it for Juliet’s actual dismissal of Romeo fro
m the balcony. She needs to tell him to leave, but also that she wishes he could stay.
KATE: Oh, she would make him her captive.
WILL: But bound only by bonds of love.
BOTTOM: Well, when I were a boy, and my life were very harsh and brutal—
WILL: Please, Bottom. I’m working.
BOTTOM: Sometimes, in me pain and loneliness, I’d trap a lark or a sparrow and hold it fast with a thread of silk.
WILL: Bottom, I’m trying to concentrate.
BOTTOM: It were, like … so beautiful and delicate and sweet of song, and I knew I should release it but the only freedom I could bear to grant it were the length of the thread.
Both Will and Kate pause most thoughtfully.
KATE: Actually, that is quite an effective and appropriate image.
WILL: Well, yes, I suppose it might work at a pinch. I’ll just bung it in for now, until I can think of anything better. What do you think?
Will has scribbled some words and now Kate doth read them.
KATE: ’Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone, and yet no farther than a wanton’s bird, that lets it hop a little from his hand, like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silk thread plucks it back again, so loving jealous of his liberty.’ Loving jealous! Like sweet sorrow. Another heart-breaking confliction. It’s beautiful.
BOTTOM: That’s my line, that is!
WILL: Bottom, it is not your line. I admit that your shameful history of cruelty to animals may have given me a vague hint, but it is definitely my line.fn6
WILL’S STRATFORD HOME – DAY
The family be gathered. Will doth enter.
WILL: Home am I.
The twins rush excitedly to greet him in the hope of treats.
WILL: Last trip before Romeo and Juliet rehearsals begin.
SUSANNA: Is my play really finished then?
WILL: Pretty much, my darling. I’ve just been reworking the balcony scene with Kate. Tell me what you think.
Will doth give his daughter the manuscript.
SUSANNA: I can’t believe you wrote this for me. I know I used to think it was all crappage, but if you really read it and give it a chance, and come back to it, quite a few times, and slowly familiarize yourself with the language and the imagery, weirdly, you can start to sort of enjoy it.
WILL: Yes, I rather think that’s the way it’s going to be with my stuff.fn7
JOHN: I still think it’s all crappage.
MARY: But you don’t mind spending the money he makes.
JOHN: Of course not. If people want to sit for hours, busting for a wee and wishing they were dead so’s I can have plenty of ale and pie, good luck to ’em.
ANNE: Anyway, did you have a good journey, love?
WILL: Astonishingly, no. Didn’t get to sit down till Leamington Spa.
JOHN: You got to get there early if you want a good seat.
WILL: I know that, Dad, and I did. Three hours early. And I got a lovely seat, at the back, by a window. And mark this, there sat none beside me. I put my cloak and pork pasty upon the adjoining place, avoided all eye contact as others boarded, and my ruse worked. Despite the coach being passing full, I myself had room to spare.
MARY: A double seat.
WILL: Aye, Mum, a double seat is indeed such stuff as dreams are made of. But soon did it become a very nightmare as the hour of our departure comes and yet we do not move. We sit and we sit. Now come travellers who would have missed this coach had it left upon its hour. ‘Coachman, bar the door,’ I shouted. ‘These travellers have missed this coach. The fact that it is still here is a technicality.’
MARY: Quite right. You have to make a fuss in this world.
WILL: But I fussed in vain, Mum. The shabby grottling just grinned at me through toothless, rotting gums as first one, then another tardy traveller crowded in upon us. My coat and pasty was soon challenged, of course. ‘Is anybody sitting there?’ Why do people ask that? Yes, actually, there is. But he’s invisible. Of course nobody’s sitting there. That’s the whole futtocking point.
MARY: And so you had to shift your pasty.
WILL: Yes, while a girthsome yeoman, who appeared to have eaten a turd omelette for breakfast, crushed himself against me and began to scratch inside his codpiece. And still, the coach doth not depart. Now, we are jammed together like two boobies in a bodice. The stinksome bumshank of an unwashed peasant be in my face. My pasty knocked to the floor, which the dangle-scratcher picks up for me, using his dangle-scratching hand, so that now I cannot eat it but must still thank itchy dangle for his kindness through clenched teeth.
MARY: And I don’t suppose any explanation was given.
WILL: Why would there be when imposing arbitrary inconvenience on the travelling public is the sworn duty of all who administer Albion’s transport infrastructure?
JOHN: But it moved in the end, son. I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?
WILL: No, Dad. It did not move, for finally there comes a voice. This coach has developed a fault and we must needs abandon it. Another awaits behind. So now you see the satanic conclusion to my tale. Suddenly, having been first on—
ANNE: Oh my God, you’re last off!
WILL: Yes. A perfect storm of transport horror. I waited three hours to get a good seat and now the mooching hooligans who should have missed it are first in the new queue.
MARY: Well, you should have said something!
WILL: I did say something! ‘Coachman, ho!’ I shouted. ‘Those who boarded last must do so again. Lock the new coach until I who was first can enter!’
ANNE: And did he?
WILL: Yes, yes, he did. Except no, he didn’t! He just laughed and all made merry at my expense as I struggled on last and the door was forced closed behind me with my arsing cheeks caught in the gap. God, I hate this sceptred bloody isle.
Susanna be crying.
WILL: Sue, what’s wrong? Don’t cry. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad a journey.
SUSANNA: No, Dad, it isn’t that. It’s my play. It’s so beautiful and so sad. It’s like Jules says, it’s sweet sorrow.
WILL: Sue, I think that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my plays.
JOHN: I don’t imagine there’s a lot of competition.fn8
UPSTAIRS – NIGHT
Anne be already a-bed. Will doth enter the chamber.
ANNE: Do you know, I think this Romeo and Juliet could be as big as Richard the Third was. Bigger, even.
WILL: Finally. Another proper hit. And I owe it to two wonderful women.
ANNE: Susanna.
WILL: Aye, sweet Sue. And also—
ANNE: Me.
WILL: Kate.
ANNE: Kate? I thought you were going to say me. Because of the sweet sorrow and loving jealousy of our own courting days.
WILL: Well, yes. Obviously, absolutely. That’s a given. Although, our courting days weren’t exactly days, were they? I mean, more like hours really. Minutes, to be fair. I came round to buy a chicken, knocked you up in the barn, and the next thing we knew, we were walking up the aisle with your dad’s pitchfork prodding me in the arseington.fn9
ANNE: We found love, didn’t we?
WILL: Of course we did. And of course you are the inspiration for my Juliet – in a very abstract sense. I only mention young Kate because her sensitive readings of the text have inspired me.
ANNE: You’re not going all diddly doodah on her, are you?
WILL: Anne, please. ’Tis simply that I appreciate her faultless oral work. She has a fine chest and I particularly admire her assonance.
Anne is not happy but Will is oblivious.
WILL’S LONDON LODGINGS – DAY
Will, Bottom and Kate, who be most excited.
KATE: Juliet! Me? Oh my goodly godlingtons. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This be so unexpected. (Speaks in the manner of an aside, which by strict convention none can overhear) And yet by my troth, it be not unexpected at all. For first, did I revive his interest in the play by in
voking the image of his sweet Susanna. Then did I ensure that every word he writ, I spoke until he could hear his Juliet in no other voice but mine.
WILL: Well, let’s face it, Kate. ’Twas you that revived my interest in the play by invoking the image of my sweet Susanna, and then every word I writ, you have spoke till I could hear my Juliet in no other voice but thine.
Again, Kate doth turn away to speak in an aside.
KATE: God, I’m good.
BOTTOM: You better not futtock up my line about the captured bird.
WILL: It is not your line, Bottom.
BOTTOM: You can tell yourself what you want, master, but you know the truth.
KATE: But the main thing is, how are we going to sneak me into Burbage’s company? Girly acting being illegal.
WILL: And we must also deal with Mr Condell, who as you know is as anxious to play Juliet as you are.
BOTTOM: He’s even had his nostrils waxed.
KATE: But methought that last year, when you first considered the casting of the role, you deemed Mr Condell too old to play the ingénue.fn10
WILL: Ah, but that was before he became an investor in our new theatre. As a stockholder, he has a casting veto. Or in this case, a casting ego. He’ll insist on playing the female lead.fn11
KATE: But he’ll be a dreadful Juliet.
WILL: Exactly. And likewise Mr Burbage as Romeo. For of course he will expect the title role and, much though I do admire him, he be very old and fully twenty-seven stone.
KATE: So you’re saying that while Mr Condell and Mr Burbage be wrong for the teenage lovers, being middle-aged and most hairy, they’ll still want the roles?
WILL: Yes. I’m beginning to think that actors might be a tiny bit vain and self-obsessed.fn12
KATE: Oh no. I simply can’t agree. Actors are very, very special people.
WILL: So they will tell you at exhausting length. Vanity, thy name is actor. And ’tis their vanity that will undo them.fn13