A To Z Challenge 2022: Shakespeare - U Is For Upstart Crow

 

The book in which Greene is rude about Shakespeare. Public Domain.

Who would have thought you could turn the life of Shakespeare into a sitcom? Yet that happened in 2016, when a TV series was produced to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. It is written by Ben Elton, well known for such comedies as Blackadder and The Young Ones, and stars David Mitchell, who makes a very good and convincing Shakespeare.

 The title comes from the Elizabethan novelist Robert Greene, who was very rude about Shakespeare, calling him “an upstart crow, beautified in our feathers”, to accuse him of plagiarism, which was ironic, given that he pinched that line from Roman writer Horace! 

Even more ironically, Shakespeare did later use one of Greene’s novels, Pandosto, as a basis for The Winter’s Tale.

Robert Greene is a regular character in Upstart Crow, as the villain. The actor playing Greene, Mark Heap, was in the radio play of Good Omens, in the much more benign role of angel Aziraphale. 

There are three seasons and some specials, including a recent “Lockdown” episode in which the characters are in lockdown due to the plague.

The series is about Shakespeare’s years in London, from 1592 onwards. He is renting an apartment from the mother of series regular Kate, a young woman who wants desperately to go on stage, but can’t because women in England were not allowed to perform in those days. It doesn’t stop her from complaining about it or Shakespeare from telling her she can’t. 

Christopher Marlowe is another regular character, who hides out in Shakespeare’s digs after he survives his assassination attempt. Yep, Marlowe didn’t get murdered after all! It’s implied that Shakespeare actually writes some of Marlowe’s plays, a joke on the suggestion that Marlowe wrote his plays. 

Another regular is Shakespeare’s servant, Bottom, who is not very bright.

Each episode centres around one of Shakespeare’s plays. He goes back to Stratford each episode, where he visits his family - his wife Anne Hathaway, the three children and his parents - and complains about the public transport. Each episode ends with him discussing the story at the fire with Anne. His father, John Shakespeare, is shown as a rather vulgar man, who spends a lot of time sitting at the table on a chamber pot. 

The actors in his company are Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and Will Kempe. Another genuine historical character is Mistress Lucy, the pub keeper inspired by a real African woman called Lucy Negro. 

His daughter Susanna is shown as a strong young woman who doesn’t take nonsense from anyone, reads his plays and gives him advice he listens to. In the Much Ado About Nothing episode, Shakespeare tries the whole Hero thing with a boy she likes, but she punches the unlucky youth when he tries to apologise. In the Merchant Of Venice episode, she has a job at a Dame school, where she makes use of an adapted version of the “Hath not a Jew eyes” speech to help a boy in her class who has been getting bullied for his “simple” nature. 

That was a particularly good episode. Shakespeare wants to avoid overdoing the antisemitism in it, so when Richard Burbage wants to do Shylock as an over -the-top baby eating Jew, Shakespeare auditions others for the role. It doesn’t work out, because the very good actor who gets the job(sending up Mark Rylance) turns out to have been working for Robert Greene. So Richard Burbage gets to do the baby eating Jew after all. But that scene where the young boy successfully uses Shakespeare’s speech to make his classmates understand was very touching. 

Shakespeare’s friends don’t consider A Midsummer Night’s Dream funny until the donkey head is introduced, but think Hamlet is hilarious, much to Shakespeare’s annoyance. 

It was a very funny series, which you can watch whether or not you are a regular Shakespeare fan. In fact, it might get some people checking out the plays.

Tomorrow’s post will be on those women of Coriolanus, Volumnia and Virgilia. See you then!