I was approaching the halfway mark of my Shakespeare-a-thon, and methought it was time for some top scores. The Big H was coming up, so I was well excited. That’s got to deliver the goods, I thought, otherwise why was it quoted so often?

But first, there was this.

21. As You Like It

In a nutshell, nothing happened then some people got married.

And The Hungry Caterpillar had a more believable plot.

Plus, if we take Shakespeare’s word for it, then Elizabethan England was teeming with women dressed as men, gallivanting about for the flimsiest of reasons.

Take Rosalind: she and Celia head off into the woods because Celia’s dad had decided to kill her (she hadn’t done anything wrong, obviously). So, she dressed as a boy to stop them being pestered as two girls alone. Fair enough, you say – apart from the fact that they were taking a man with them as well. For protection.
So why did she need to dress as a boy, and – more importantly – why didn’t Celia need to? Fucked if I know.

Spoiler alert – neither the guy who loved her or her own dad recognised her once she was wearing puffy pants and a tiny wee codpiece. But a girl she met twice instantly knew who she was the second she put her frock back on. Go figure.

So what I’m saying is don’t expect anything in this play to be logical or you will drive yourself mental. Which would be a shame, as it had some lovely bits.

Most famous of these was the ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’ speech. Which was great. But also the high point.

However, it did boast an unusual number of phrases that we still employ today, such as:
…too much of a good thing…
…neither rime nor reason…
…for ever and a day.

And the Dramatis Personae listed two characters called Jacques (cos that wasn’t confusing), and ‘a person representing HYMEN’ (seriously? But it was ok, if a bit weird, because Auntie Google told me he was the God of marriage. Phew.)

This line, from Silvius (a nobody), was pure joy – ‘…in thy youth thou wast as true a lover as ever sigh’d upon a midnight pillow.’

But my favourite Shakespearian line so far belonged to Celia, who really knew how to do excited: – ‘O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!’ 

You go, girl.

5/10

Celia’s whooping put me in a really good mood as I moved on to this.

22. Twelfth Night

I found it a wonderful play. It kicked off with the whole, ‘If music be the food of love, play on,’ thing, and was a joy to read.
But, like many of the comedies, was still a bit logically suspect.

For instance, there was Viola, who was shipwrecked and grieving the loss of her brother (presumed drowned). She’d fetched up in Illyria, where she’d heard about two households: –

One was the house of a nice lady mourning the death of her own brother. A place where Viola could be herself, and where she’d be understood and sympathised with, and where she and the nice lady could support each other through their grief. Sounds a perfect fit, right?

The other place had the local duke, who was pining for the nice lady in mourning, and was also a self-centred, pushy, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer, totally extra, dick. Here, Viola would have to be in disguise, push all her own feelings down, and do his bidding.

I bet you can’t guess which household Shakespeare shoved her into, can you?

Honestly, I reckon Will was only happy when he had a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man to mess about with.

And I bet he thought he was being soooo clever having Fabian practically leaping the fourth wall saying, ‘If this were play’d upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.’ Shhh, keep it quiet, Will; I’m trying to gloss over those bits for you.

There was some great stuff here tho – and I mean that quite literally. That speech about some people being born great, some achieving greatness, and some having greatness thrust upon them? That was in this one.

It came from Maria, who wrote it in a letter to Malvolio. It’s a fabulous line, but did she get to say it? No, cos she wasn’t dressed as a man. A bloke got to read it out. Oh joy.

(Can’t tell you how delighted I was with the National Theatre Online’s version, which had Tamsin Grieg saying it.)

But this play skipped along nicely, even if it was a bit odd (well, cold) when Viola realised her brother didn’t drown after all, but then she wouldn’t even consider giving him a hug until she’d had time to change back into her girly-clothes.

7/10

23. Hamlet

Oh boy. If you like a bit of Shakespeare then this is the mother-load. Pretty much every quote you’ve ever heard of came from this play (apart from the one that began and ended with the word ‘Romeo’, obviously).

It’s home to those wonderful soliloquies that we all trot out at parties when we’re showy-offy-drunk, starting, ‘To be or not to be…’ and, ‘Alas, poor Yorick…’

But a lot of other familiar phrases all entered out language through this portal, for instance, ‘there’s method in my madness’, ‘murder most foul’, ‘the lady doth protest too much’, ‘the witching hour’, ‘being cruel to be kind’, ‘the dog will have his day’, and weirdly, ‘willy nilly’.

I did find the line of succession in the Danish Royal Family a bit mystifying: because if Prince Hamlet was of age when the King died (and he was, cos he was at university), then why did the King’s brother inherit the throne? So, it was a wee bit Game of Thrones.

But Hamlet tho: his much-loved dad had died, and four weeks (yes, you heard me – FOUR WEEKS) later his slutty mum married his dad’s slime-ball of a brother. A mere month after that and everyone started having a pop at Hamlet for still being upset about dad. They were united in thinking he should be past all that grieving stuff, and were seriously considering the idea that he’d lost his wits. Pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me.

Ergo he was not in a good place when dead dad cropped up as a ghost, and demanded revenge for having been murdered by shitty-bastard brother. Ooh, so actually it’s Game of Thrones does Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

And now Hamlet was a man on a mission, but the only time he got Uncle creepy-pants alone was when he was praying, and to kill him during confession would be an epic fail in terms of revenge. So he killed someone else. Which was fine, because he was annoying. But then not so fine, because it was his girlfriend’s dad.

Ok, so it’s Game of Thrones does A Christmas Carol in Albert Square. And really, what more do you want from a play?

In conclusion, is this Dane the greatest?

Yup, I think so. 10/10

I was completely chuffed at being able to trot out a ten. I let myself bask in that for a while, as I knew I had more women dressed as men coming up and some next-level scary dads to deal with.