Atkinson's character is supposedly based on John Lloyd, the producer of Blackadder. Richard Curtis wrote this sketch after Lloyd had said Shakespeare could have done with an editor.
These men are brilliant as is anyone else who created this skit. Just saw Hugh Laurie live last night with his Copper Bottom Band. Hugh may be the most brilliant entertainer of our time. Love the line: this play is five hours Bill, and on wooden seats and no toilets on this side of the Thames.
Janice Brandal - I mean no offense, but... 1) they did not write this (apparently)...they just acted it out. I bet you there are numerus actors who could have done as well as these two did (and I think both actors are wonderful at their craft). 2) you have seen only a tiny percentage of all entertainers in 'our time'. To assume either of these two could be the greatest of 'our time' is a bit silly. ☮
+UserName ... people worship what they proclaim to be real gods, whom do nothing, and provide at all, except maybe a minor placebo effect, a virtual thumb to suck. Yet they adamantly believe that these phantasms gift them fortune... I would say that the internet does that, much more frequently
My grandmother would have loved all these gems coming up on the internet but she didn't even make it to PC times, what a pity. She was born in 1891, ran away to the theatre in 1907, became an actress and a rebel and finally a German refugee in Paris. She's been my guiding star to literature, dance- and drama theatre and, especially, comedy. How she would have loved this little skit, she'd always been a fan of British black humour. Now I can share this in memory of her, thank you for uploading :)
What an inspirational woman she must have been . To run away to the theatre at the age of 16 in those days would have taken such guts and then to eventually become a refugee in Paris ! What a life !
''We'll see which one history remembers.'' Its funny because anytime Hamlet is referenced, a character will be holding the skull in reference to the Yorick bit, but usually recites the To Be or Not To Be line.
Atkinson in one of his specials as the Black Adder. He crosses the path of Shakespeare and give him a pop. And tells Shakespeare that was for every school boy..... Priceless.....
I love Hugh Laurie, he is so talented! I kept thinking of him as House, a growling dark-hearted American doctor, as well as a very funny actor, and also a musician. Rowan Atkinson is great, as always.
So sad that Mr. Atkinson has to be immediately recognized for his Mr. Bean character, and not even the funniest version, imho. Blackadder is his best stuff, hands down.
As a huge Shakespeare fan (particularly Hamlet) this sketch made me laugh so hard - even more so because I understood all the references! Absolutely brilliant!
I know next to nothing about Shakespeare but I could tell there were various phrases which must have had some special meaning. I still found it very funny without knowing much about it!
Ive always hated Shakespeare pretty much across the board - I figure they are only popular cuz we've got such alot of them and so you can have a festival. Grrrr....
I believe Hamlet is still about 5 hours acted with no cuts... they must have not got it down enough! I like the way the humour is set up here, where we laugh at the audacity of him seeming to call the famous "To be or not to be" speech boring and wordy, but then laugh more when we realise the "original" version is not what we expect and IS boring and wordy, until Rowan cuts it down to the familiar one.
I know I'm way late to the party but can confirm. Source: a final dress rehearsal that ran well over 4 hours with minimal technical pauses and shortening the intermissions for purposes of getting through rehearsal. 🙄 We managed to tighten up Opening Night by maybe an hour. Worth it, but quite a long haul and not for the faint of heart!
I'm more entertained by what he has to say and how he says it, he is such a great voice actor and with his Mr. Bean sketches he barely opens his mouth.
They were both already very famous before Bean and House. I always felt those were things the did after reaching their absolute pinnacle with Blackadder, Not The Nine O’clock News, etc.
I've often thought of the "infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters" notion. One of them would have written "Damlet, Prince of Henmark".
Priceless! Obviously the state of the Rose Theatre hadn't changed much over the centuries and neither had the availability of decent toilets 'this side of the Thames'. For years growing up and not knowing what the play was about, I wondered what the words, 'to be, or not to be' could possibly mean, and of course, of themselves they could mean a variety of different things. For a child, or young person without reading a critique of the play, or anybody who knows to ask, this line can be pretty vague. What a hoot. I reckon that for sure, the Bard would have appreciated the humour drawn here.
at the time, the remains of the Elizabethan Rose Theatre had just been discovered and excavated on a site earmarked for an office block. There was a big campaign going on by theatrical types to save it from development.
@@geoffreywinfield7980 No, you are confusing Elizabethan-era theatres in London. There were several, the Rose was the first that archaeologists rediscovered, about 1988 (roughly when this was filmed). The remains of the Globe weren't found until a few years later, the Theatre, and the Curtain - both on the northern edge of the Elizabethan city - a bit later still. The modern day Globe theatre is a reconstruction a few hundred yards from the original site. It has little to do with the Rose Theatre, however, especially as the Rose is the one being referenced here.
This brings to mind "Shakespeare in Love" and "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter . . . some VERY funny moments in that film! And THIS was an exceptionally sketch by two of the Greatest of the Greats!
God Blessed them (and us) with their talents. It's a shame the average modern man isn't even capable of completely comprehending the HUGE 16th century active vocabulary and syntax these Comic Geniuses are "cutting down". Have you ever heard comedian John Branyon tell the story of 'The Tree Pigs' written in the fashion of 16th century Shakespeare ? If only they had used it as my introduction to such legendary literary works . . .
This is SO hilarious ! Of course ‘ Hamlet ‘ was a plagiarised story taken from the Norwegian ( ? ) Amletus . Love the bit about the avocado monologue at the end of King Lear and the tap dance at the end of Othello ! Funniest thing is that I did Hamlet for A level MANY years ago and got an exceptionally high Grade A , but no one ever told us ( and I’ve only recently realised ) that the first few scenes of the play are back to front and due to some transposition error in writing up the First ( ? ) Folio cos, Hamlet sees his father’s ghost in Act I scene 2 ( ? ) but then a couple of scenes later has his ‘ To be or not to be ? ‘ soliloquy referring to ‘ the unseen country from whose bourne no traveller returns ‘ etc, but he’s already SEEN someone return from the dead in the form of a lifelike , armoured ghost !!! Why is it STILL performed in this wrong order ? 🤷♀😡😂
Actually no. It would be if they start from Hamlet and destroy it with stupid suggestions. Here, that's the opposite that happens. Shakespeare's first draft is rubbish and the "editor" turns it into the masterpiece we know.
I've done a fair bit of am dram and Hamlet gets cut down a LOT. But in theatre you can just carry on even if you make a huge mistake because you know it's a mistake but THE AUDIENCE DOESN'T.
This is some perspective on how Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. Slightly exaggerated ofcourse but nevertheless closer to reality than his trans-historic image as a builder of universal truths.
@@hippolyte90 I can't remember where I read it, but yes immediate audience feedback was one of the reasons why he did that. Imagine Stephen King doing it.
There is no evidence that Shakspere the actor wrote any plays or could write at all. 6 signatures are the words "by me" are all that have been accepted by experts including the Folger. Francis Meers (1565-1647) made a list of playwrights and who knew or worked with whom -- "Shakespeare" is not on it. Ben Jonson edited the plays long after the author(s) of the Shakespeare works were gone (and ghost wrote the Heminges and Condell letters). 5-hour Hamlet may have been for readers only.
@@apollocobain8363 There is evidence he could write, namely the handwritten signatures you mention in the very same line. Also, William Shakespeare, even disregarding his widely acknowledged role as dramatist, was an actor and so would've had to be able to read his lines in order to, you know, act. As for "Shakspere", the most common spelling of his name, whether in Stratford or in London, was actually Shakespeare, which is irrelevant anyway as spelling was far from standardized at the time--unambiguous references to the poet vary from Shakespere to Shakspeare to Shakespeare etc etc. Marlowe's only surviving signature renders his name "Christofer Marloy". Accepted autographs also include three pages in the collaborative play Sir Thomas More as Hand D. Wrong once more. *"Francis Meers (1565-1647) made a list of playwrights and who knew or worked with whom -- "Shakespeare" is not on it."* Are you so stupid as to cite a document which directly contradicts you? Here is Frances Meres on Shakespeare in the Palladis Tamia (1598): "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &tc" On his plays: "Shakespeare among ye English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage". Here is John Stow in his Annales (1615): "Our moderne, and present excellent poets (...) Willi. Shakespeare gentleman" You know what's fantastic about that last example? Gentleman was a legally restricted title, and there was only one William Shakespeare entitled to bear it and a coat of arms in the whole kingdom, so all references to William Shakespeare, gentleman, necessarily refer to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, actor, poet and playwright referred to by dozens and dozens of contemporary documents, both legal and literary. In fact, one official of the College Arms, Ralph Brooke, who contested the Shakespeares' attribution of a coat of arms explicitly refers to "Shakespeare the player" [i.e. actor] as one who is unworthy of the gentry. *"Ben Jonson edited the plays long after the author(s) of the Shakespeare works were gone (and ghost wrote the Heminges and Condell letters)"* Ah, brain rot. Fascinating. *"5-hour Hamlet may have been for readers only."* At least you managed to say one thing that wasn't completely idiotic.
Filmed on a genuine Elizabethan era camera.
“But all I’m saying, Shakey, is…” 😂😂😂😂😂
Atkinson's character is supposedly based on John Lloyd, the producer of Blackadder. Richard Curtis wrote this sketch after Lloyd had said Shakespeare could have done with an editor.
Good info😊👍
University..Oh, the ache 😔🤢
John Lloyd is the luvvie’s luvvie.
@@myleschilton3473 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha top line [...and so true].
How did I ever miss this gem. I’ll never see Hamlet again without flashing back to this sketch
You need to shorten it: I'll never see Hamlet again.
There, fixed it.
These men are brilliant as is anyone else who created this skit. Just saw Hugh Laurie live last night with his Copper Bottom Band. Hugh may be the most brilliant entertainer of our time.
Love the line: this play is five hours Bill, and on wooden seats and no toilets on this side of the Thames.
Yes, and that's what the whole speech is about: To pee, or not to pee.
@Dave: and in modern times "To Glee or not to Glee"
Janice Brandal - I mean no offense, but...
1) they did not write this (apparently)...they just acted it out. I bet you there are numerus actors who could have done as well as these two did (and I think both actors are wonderful at their craft).
2) you have seen only a tiny percentage of all entertainers in 'our time'. To assume either of these two could be the greatest of 'our time' is a bit silly.
☮
Thank you, internet Gods for dropping this in my lap!
Internet gods ,for fuck's sake !
+UserName ... people worship what they proclaim to be real gods, whom do nothing, and provide at all, except maybe a minor placebo effect, a virtual thumb to suck. Yet they adamantly believe that these phantasms gift them fortune... I would say that the internet does that, much more frequently
"you can't say that! it's gibberish!"
still my favorite..
Shakespeare: 🖕. 👎🏼👎🏼
My grandmother would have loved all these gems coming up on the internet but she didn't even make it to PC times, what a pity. She was born in 1891, ran away to the theatre in 1907, became an actress and a rebel and finally a German refugee in Paris. She's been my guiding star to literature, dance- and drama theatre and, especially, comedy. How she would have loved this little skit, she'd always been a fan of British black humour. Now I can share this in memory of her, thank you for uploading :)
your grandmother seems like a lovely woman.it must have taken quite a bit of courage to break out of the victorian orthodoxy.
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
Sorry to hear that your grandmother was a Communist.
What an inspirational woman she must have been . To run away to the theatre at the age of 16 in those days would have taken such guts and then to eventually become a refugee in Paris ! What a life !
Why is there no more British black humor like Black Adder, Red Dwarf or The New Statesman?
As an actor, I really wanna hear that avocado monologue!
Wanna?
''We'll see which one history remembers.'' Its funny because anytime Hamlet is referenced, a character will be holding the skull in reference to the Yorick bit, but usually recites the To Be or Not To Be line.
Atkinson in one of his specials as the Black Adder.
He crosses the path of Shakespeare and give him a pop.
And tells Shakespeare that was for every school boy.....
Priceless.....
I love Hugh Laurie, he is so talented! I kept thinking of him as House, a growling dark-hearted American doctor, as well as a very funny actor, and also a musician.
Rowan Atkinson is great, as always.
I always remember his as Prince George from Blackadder III.
These comic actors make life worth living.
There is still hope for humanity with these two guys
Howdy? Doody
So sad that Mr. Atkinson has to be immediately recognized for his Mr. Bean character, and not even the funniest version, imho. Blackadder is his best stuff, hands down.
@@lisajean228 I am in full agreement
There is still hope for everyone with so many good people in the world
@@lisajean228 Dido!
As a huge Shakespeare fan (particularly Hamlet) this sketch made me laugh so hard - even more so because I understood all the references! Absolutely brilliant!
Yes bc you need to be a Shakespearean to "understand" all the cliches mentioned here?
@@saharlev571 No, not at all. I'm just glad I have the context for it, is all. Hope you are well, and that the COVID situation where you are is ok. :)
I know next to nothing about Shakespeare but I could tell there were various phrases which must have had some special meaning. I still found it very funny without knowing much about it!
Well done
'Alas poor Baldric, a fellow of infinite cunning'
"All I'm saying, Shakey..." so good.
Rowan in costume, yet wearing his wristwatch. Makes it even more funny :D
"It's 5 hours, Bill.....it's boring, Bill."
Ah how many of us have wanted to say that to Shakespeare when dissecting his plays during lit
Yawnsville.
Haha
Ive always hated Shakespeare pretty much across the board - I figure they are only popular cuz we've got such alot of them and so you can have a festival. Grrrr....
Dissecting Shakespeare. Once required to write a character sketch of Ophelia, all I could write was “she’s crazy”. I failed that class.
This is the most hilarious thing I've watched in a long, long time. Thanks for posting.
Super sketch by two comedic geniuses!
"You can't say that it's gibberish."
That was Rowan as Blackadder. No question.
'To die, to sleep... Woops ! Hamlet falls off the battlements!'
That was the year of Laurence Olivier's death..
This is so hysterical!! First hearty laugh I had in a loooong time. Brilliant all around.
I believe Hamlet is still about 5 hours acted with no cuts... they must have not got it down enough! I like the way the humour is set up here, where we laugh at the audacity of him seeming to call the famous "To be or not to be" speech boring and wordy, but then laugh more when we realise the "original" version is not what we expect and IS boring and wordy, until Rowan cuts it down to the familiar one.
I know I'm way late to the party but can confirm. Source: a final dress rehearsal that ran well over 4 hours with minimal technical pauses and shortening the intermissions for purposes of getting through rehearsal. 🙄 We managed to tighten up Opening Night by maybe an hour. Worth it, but quite a long haul and not for the faint of heart!
@@margarethughes6542 The original was not for the faint of bladder!
"All I'm saying, Shakey...."
I'm more entertained by what he has to say and how he says it, he is such a great voice actor and with his Mr. Bean sketches he barely opens his mouth.
But also, mime and semi-mime are so expressive--and can be enjoyed around the world, regardless of language barriers!
Laurie is an outstanding comedian actor! I'm so happy for him that he has finally became famous due to house M D. I adore him!
He was already famous in England.
Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster - welll known in good old England way before House.
I love his facial expressions. He does the best eye rolls.
They were both already very famous before Bean and House.
I always felt those were things the did after reaching their absolute pinnacle with Blackadder, Not The Nine O’clock News, etc.
@@jackjohnson2101 And, indeed in Britain.
I've often thought of the "infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters" notion.
One of them would have written "Damlet, Prince of Henmark".
Priceless! Obviously the state of the Rose Theatre hadn't changed much over the centuries and neither had the availability of decent toilets 'this side of the Thames'. For years growing up and not knowing what the play was about, I wondered what the words, 'to be, or not to be' could possibly mean, and of course, of themselves they could mean a variety of different things. For a child, or young person without reading a critique of the play, or anybody who knows to ask, this line can be pretty vague. What a hoot. I reckon that for sure, the Bard would have appreciated the humour drawn here.
at the time, the remains of the Elizabethan Rose Theatre had just been discovered and excavated on a site earmarked for an office block. There was a big campaign going on by theatrical types to save it from development.
It was and is the Globe Theatre
@@geoffreywinfield7980 No, you are confusing Elizabethan-era theatres in London. There were several, the Rose was the first that archaeologists rediscovered, about 1988 (roughly when this was filmed). The remains of the Globe weren't found until a few years later, the Theatre, and the Curtain - both on the northern edge of the Elizabethan city - a bit later still.
The modern day Globe theatre is a reconstruction a few hundred yards from the original site. It has little to do with the Rose Theatre, however, especially as the Rose is the one being referenced here.
@@ghughesarch Thank you, I did not know that. And I'm a Londoner.
@@ghughesarch I live on the other side of the world; thanks for setting me right.
"Brevity is the soul of wit"
Absolutely brilliant.
This brings to mind "Shakespeare in Love" and "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter . . . some VERY funny moments in that film! And THIS was an exceptionally sketch by two of the Greatest of the Greats!
I'm going to use "Shaky" for Shakespeare
How about Bill the Quill?
+rosie cider 😁
Mr Bean and Dr. House... DOUBLE THE EPICNESS!!!
Actually both actors were together in the TV series, Blackadder.
I was going to say, BlackAdder and the Prince Regent!
Bob Newhart did this in the ‘50’s with Lincoln editing his Gettysburg Address in one of his wonderful phone call sketches.
Thank you! I'm a fan of Bob Newhart, so I looked this up. Poor Abe is getting managed all-to-hell!
God Blessed them (and us) with their talents.
It's a shame the average modern man isn't even capable of completely comprehending the HUGE 16th century active vocabulary
and syntax these Comic Geniuses are "cutting down".
Have you ever heard comedian John Branyon tell the story of 'The Tree Pigs' written in the fashion of 16th century Shakespeare ?
If only they had used it as my introduction to such legendary literary works . . .
Here it is. Three Little Pigs Like You've Never Heard Before. John Branyan
m.czcams.com/video/l_UegL1R3X8/video.html
This is absolutely brilliant!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
I'm working on it in class right now! Hope all goes well! Lots of Love. From France!
2 utterly brilliant men.
"All I'm saying Shaky!" XD
If only there were someone in this sketch called Baldrick...
This is brilliant.
OK who laughed after Rowan finished up "To be or not to be that is the question" with "da dit dithth tht th da dit". 🤣
Gotta love an iambic pentameter joke
This is genius, absolute genius.
This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while XD
For any blind peoples of taste who the parenthesis confuses, this features Laurie (Wooster) and Atkinson (Blackadder).
Finally someone gives the proper references! :)
One of the greatest, most accurate and sassiest CZcams comments of all time. I salute you.
Get someone to read this to you: it'll help with the visuals.
Very clever!
Blackadder's secret career.
😁
these guys can never fill the demand for their humor
to be or not to be that is the question......ta ra ta ra tara tara tara tara
Secret Policeman’s Ball! Loved them. Went to the first one! Great talents all gone on to higher things.
Oh, lord, I haven't laughed so hard in years!!!
it took me over 30 YEARS to find this!
Two of the greats
0:13 So that's where Ben Elton got the Upstart Crow traffic gag.
Two Top Actors. Atkinson and Lloyd 😂 Thank You very much for the post! ❤️
Gothically awesome!☺️☺️☺️☺️
Classic gold
Genius!
This is SO hilarious ! Of course ‘ Hamlet ‘ was a plagiarised story taken from the Norwegian ( ? ) Amletus . Love the bit about the avocado monologue at the end of King Lear and the tap dance at the end of Othello !
Funniest thing is that I did Hamlet for A level MANY years ago and got an exceptionally high Grade A , but no one ever told us ( and I’ve only recently realised ) that the first few scenes of the play are back to front and due to some transposition error in writing up the First ( ? ) Folio cos, Hamlet sees his father’s ghost in Act I scene 2 ( ? ) but then a couple of scenes later has his ‘ To be or not to be ? ‘ soliloquy referring to ‘ the unseen country from whose bourne no traveller returns ‘ etc, but he’s already SEEN someone return from the dead in the form of a lifelike , armoured ghost !!! Why is it STILL performed in this wrong order ? 🤷♀😡😂
Oh la la - great comment! enjoyed it! Merci!
@@YuyiLeal Thanks! Est vous francaise ? 🤷♀
@@YuyiLeal should of course be ‘ etes ‘ vous francaise ! Typos are my betes noir !
@@mikehillmann7340 Sorry, what’s Qd ? There should of course be no s on betes !
Wooster as Shakespeare? Yes and yes and yes.
Such a great critique of modern commercialism in film and theatre!
Actually no. It would be if they start from Hamlet and destroy it with stupid suggestions. Here, that's the opposite that happens. Shakespeare's first draft is rubbish and the "editor" turns it into the masterpiece we know.
pure Genius
Well, thank God Bill agreed to shorten Hamlet's soliloquy. The thing is a BITCH to learn as it is!
Two geniuses
Everyone's a critic - classic!
Love it !
Absolutely
This sketch was the inspiration for the TV series'' Upstart Crow'' .
I love the gravediggers! xD
Gregory House does a really good English accent ;-)
That's his real accent. The House accent is the fake one.
God i miss the 80s
sharp audience to pick up on the iambic pentameter gag
just brilliant .. avocado
Love this skit! Shame the video quality isn;t better.
You can see where David Mitchell learned his craft
It's 5 hours, Bill!
😂😂😂 This two are awesome! Reminds me of a tale from Issac Asimov when some dude transport Shakespeare to the modern times.
Yes. WS enrolls in a night school Shakespeare class and the teacher gives him a fail.
Atkinson's wristwatch is so authentic to the time.
Brilliant
Mr Bean and House. Where did my life go?
+The SideBurned Poet It's not new ; they know each other since university ^^ Your life go on the good way :3
I can remember not the nine o'clock news
Out olded!
Or Blackadder (the later seasons), for both at once!
The SideBurned Poet - Hardly, it's Prinny and Blackadder!
Ainsley... Babcock... Blaaaand...
I've done a fair bit of am dram and Hamlet gets cut down a LOT. But in theatre you can just carry on even if you make a huge mistake because you know it's a mistake but THE AUDIENCE DOESN'T.
I clicked the video because I saw Atkinson and Laurie
We must think about bums on the seats Bill 🤣🤣
Every word in this sketch is pure iridium. Humans cannot achieve this level of perfection, so....
Historical Fax!
True. Wooden seats... no toilets ... cut to the quick!
if you don’t know the stuff the stuff won’t mean much
Everyone loves the crazy chick in the see through dress who does the flower gas and then tops herself.
Personally I wish "x falls off the battlements" could have the same meme status as "rocks fall, everyone dies"
Fry and Laurie
You can learn a lot of good puns watching these
Shakespeare makes fishing poles. It was founded by William Shakespeare, Jr. in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1897 (Wikipedia)
Quite correct. Exported to UK and they carry out metamorphosis and become rods.
Felt like this was Blackadder and Shakespeare meeting
work of this sketch is
Shakespeare's agent made him cut out tap dancing at the end of Othello? Awww fiddlesticks!
This is some perspective on how Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. Slightly exaggerated ofcourse but nevertheless closer to reality than his trans-historic image as a builder of universal truths.
Reminds me of Dickens editing his stories during public readings.
@@mikhailiagacesa3406 Makes sense since he could see what parts the audience liked and didn't like.
@@hippolyte90 I can't remember where I read it, but yes immediate audience feedback was one of the reasons why he did that. Imagine Stephen King doing it.
There is no evidence that Shakspere the actor wrote any plays or could write at all. 6 signatures are the words "by me" are all that have been accepted by experts including the Folger. Francis Meers (1565-1647) made a list of playwrights and who knew or worked with whom -- "Shakespeare" is not on it.
Ben Jonson edited the plays long after the author(s) of the Shakespeare works were gone (and ghost wrote the Heminges and Condell letters). 5-hour Hamlet may have been for readers only.
@@apollocobain8363 There is evidence he could write, namely the handwritten signatures you mention in the very same line. Also, William Shakespeare, even disregarding his widely acknowledged role as dramatist, was an actor and so would've had to be able to read his lines in order to, you know, act. As for "Shakspere", the most common spelling of his name, whether in Stratford or in London, was actually Shakespeare, which is irrelevant anyway as spelling was far from standardized at the time--unambiguous references to the poet vary from Shakespere to Shakspeare to Shakespeare etc etc. Marlowe's only surviving signature renders his name "Christofer Marloy". Accepted autographs also include three pages in the collaborative play Sir Thomas More as Hand D. Wrong once more.
*"Francis Meers (1565-1647) made a list of playwrights and who knew or worked with whom -- "Shakespeare" is not on it."*
Are you so stupid as to cite a document which directly contradicts you? Here is Frances Meres on Shakespeare in the Palladis Tamia (1598): "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &tc"
On his plays: "Shakespeare among ye English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage".
Here is John Stow in his Annales (1615): "Our moderne, and present excellent poets (...) Willi. Shakespeare gentleman"
You know what's fantastic about that last example? Gentleman was a legally restricted title, and there was only one William Shakespeare entitled to bear it and a coat of arms in the whole kingdom, so all references to William Shakespeare, gentleman, necessarily refer to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, actor, poet and playwright referred to by dozens and dozens of contemporary documents, both legal and literary. In fact, one official of the College Arms, Ralph Brooke, who contested the Shakespeares' attribution of a coat of arms explicitly refers to "Shakespeare the player" [i.e. actor] as one who is unworthy of the gentry.
*"Ben Jonson edited the plays long after the author(s) of the Shakespeare works were gone (and ghost wrote the Heminges and Condell letters)"*
Ah, brain rot. Fascinating.
*"5-hour Hamlet may have been for readers only."*
At least you managed to say one thing that wasn't completely idiotic.
Rowan and Hugh are the British version of U.S.'s Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.
Who are Korman and Conway?
@@jjakjjak5231 An American comedy duo since the 70s. Comparable to Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry if your British. *smile
@@jjakjjak5231 Google the names with the word dentist.
Hugh Laurie playing Stephen Fry playing Shakespeare
"Temperamental git!"
And then he went on to become Dr.House