A To Z Challenge 2022: Shakespeare X Is For eXtras

 

Today I will be posting about stuff I couldn’t fit into other posts. I did mention a book with a Shakespeare theme, A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson. 

But that was a fantasy. Here is an alternative universe novel about Shakespeare himself, and a couple of plays he didn’t write in our world. It is a perfectly good historical novel, except it didn’t happen.

One of my very favourite books by American writer of alternative universe fiction Harry Turtledove is Ruled Britannia. I have read it so many times it is looking rather shabby. I had to buy an ebook! 

In Ruled Britannia, the author asks, what if the Spanish Armada had succeeded in conquering England? 

Nine years later, Elizabeth I is in the Tower. Lord Burleigh is alive and free, for some reason. The Spanish have their soldiers in London. The Spanish Inquisition has been replaced by an equally keen English Inquisition, happily burning heretics.

Christopher Marlowe wasn’t assassinated, and has written more plays, some of them performed by Shakespeare’s company. 

The story, though, is seen from the viewpoint of two people. One is Shakespeare, of course. The other is Lope De Vega, who was Spain’s answer to Shakespeare, though he wrote a lot more. A few of his plays were translated into English, and I have one of those mentioned in the novel, La Dana Boba(The Foolish Lady), which I bought on Apple Books. So, yes, a real person. 

In our world, he was in the Armada, but never reached England. In Ruled Britannia, he is a Lieutenant in the occupying army, but still manages to write and produce plays. He also hangs out at Shakespeare’s theatre and goes backstage to chat with the cast, whom he thinks like him. Um, no, not really. But they can’t be rude.

He loves women, plural, which ends up getting him into huge trouble.

Shakespeare is commissioned to write two plays. One of the commissions is from the Spanish, who want him to write a play celebrating the life of Phillip II, who is dying, to be performed on report of his death. The other is a much more dangerous commission, from Lord Burleigh, who wants him to write a play inspiring the English to rise up against their oppressors. 

He gets paid a huge amount by both sides, but how much money will be worth the danger of writing a play called Boudicca in an occupied country? He doesn’t have the choice, though. If he said no, he would be assassinated because of what he knows. 

So, the play is written secretly, but also the actors and crew have to be carefully checked out - there are, after all, lifelong Catholics and other supporters of the current regime. 

And rehearsals are not easy either, even when everyone in the company can be trusted, with Lope De Vega turning up to what he assumes are rehearsals for King Phillip, in which he is playing a role. 

In some ways, it reminded me of a TV miniseries called An Englishman’s Castle, in which the conquerors are the Nazis and the rebels are the cast of a soap opera designed to reconcile the English to their situation. But it’s about Shakespeare! 

There is a character called Walter Strawberry, who is obviously meant to be Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing, and quotes from the two plays are by other playwrights. There are also plenty of quotes from existing Shakespeare plays scattered throughout the dialogue. 

Anyway, a wonderful novel! You can buy it in ebook on Apple Books and worth checking Kindle as well. 

A humorous Shakespeare-themed short story by Turtledove that is also available in ebook is “We Haven’t Got There Yet.”

In it, Shakespeare hears that a theatre company has ripped off his play Hamlet. Furious, he turns up at the theatre, intending to have a serious word with the plagiarists. However, he sees the play first, and absolutely loves it. The play is, of course, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. Going backstage afterwards, he meets the actors, who admit to being time travellers.  

Tomorrow there will be a very short post on the only Y I can think of in Shakespeare’s work - Yorick! See you then.