0:00:01 > 0:00:04This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:00:30 > 0:00:35Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40Good even and welcome to a special Shakespearean edition of QI,
0:00:40 > 0:00:44dedicated to and entitled The Immortal Bard.
0:00:44 > 0:00:50Strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage tonight are The Two Gentlemen of Verona -
0:00:50 > 0:00:52David Mitchell and Bill Bailey!
0:00:52 > 0:00:54APPLAUSE
0:00:59 > 0:01:02The Merry Wife of Windsor, Sue Perkins.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04APPLAUSE
0:01:07 > 0:01:10And Much Ado About Nothing, Alan Davies.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12APPLAUSE
0:01:17 > 0:01:19So let the trumpets sound. David goes...
0:01:19 > 0:01:22TRUMPET FANFARE
0:01:23 > 0:01:25Nice. Sue goes...
0:01:25 > 0:01:28TRUMPET FANFARE
0:01:28 > 0:01:30Bill goes...
0:01:30 > 0:01:33TRUMPET FANFARE
0:01:34 > 0:01:36And Alan goes...
0:01:37 > 0:01:39CHEESY TRUMPET MUSIC
0:01:42 > 0:01:44Of course he does.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47So let's take to the stage, good gentles all.
0:01:47 > 0:01:52When David Tennant played Hamlet at the RSC, what did Tchaikovsky play?
0:01:52 > 0:01:55- What?- Tchaikovsky? - LAUGHTER
0:01:55 > 0:02:00- Tchaikovsky being the composer Tchaikovsky? - Was he in the cast, Tchaikovsky?
0:02:00 > 0:02:04- He was.- Was he?- Pyotr Ilyich?
0:02:04 > 0:02:10Not Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Russian composer. Another musician called Tchaikovsky.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14He was also a pianist, a startling, amazing pianist, most eccentric.
0:02:14 > 0:02:20- Richard Stilgoe? - No, I've already told you his name. It was Tchaikovsky.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23Are you saying he played Richard Stilgoe?
0:02:23 > 0:02:28He blew into Richard Stilgoe and a noise came out the other end?
0:02:28 > 0:02:33You're putting him in the past tense, so I'm assuming he shuffled off his mortal coil?
0:02:33 > 0:02:38- To quote Hamlet. - That will be the only quote. That's it. I've blown all my quotes.
0:02:38 > 0:02:43- You've done damn well. Good start. - So if he's dead...- He was dead.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46- He's not alive?- The skull? - Yes, he played the skull.
0:02:46 > 0:02:52- APPLAUSE - We don't have the real skull there, but that's what a skull looks like.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56He was a very passionate Shakespearean.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01That is the real thing. Tchaikovsky bequeathed it to the Royal Shakespeare Company,
0:03:01 > 0:03:06asking that it be used in productions of Hamlet for the part of... Do you remember the character?
0:03:06 > 0:03:09- Is it Yorick?- Yorick, yes.
0:03:09 > 0:03:15"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest..."
0:03:15 > 0:03:18- "Wait a minute, this is Tchaikovsky! - It's not Yorick.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21"I'll play a tune on his teeth."
0:03:22 > 0:03:25There was a bit of trouble, health and safety issues.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30A human tissue licence had to be ordered for him to appear on stage.
0:03:30 > 0:03:35Did they cut his head off? He's gone, "When I die, I'd like my skull to be used by the RSC."
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Someone's got to saw it off and rot it down.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43The funeral directors thought it might be illegal. They had to get clearance.
0:03:43 > 0:03:48David Tennant every day held it in his hand. Tchaikovsky would have been very pleased.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51- There he is. - Look at that - a tramp yesterday!
0:03:52 > 0:03:55You hope they've had to dirty it up again.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59- Very much.- That's not just a bit of the guy still clinging...
0:03:59 > 0:04:03There's a little face still on there he's got to wash off!
0:04:03 > 0:04:06It's a long time since I've seen Hamlet.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11Because it's such a well-known bit, you don't really question what happens in it.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15It's an odd thing to do, to pick up a bloke's skull from a graveyard.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19- It's someone he knew... - Then to go, "Alas, I knew him,"
0:04:19 > 0:04:23rather than going, "I feel a bit weird, having picked up his skull."
0:04:23 > 0:04:28He's sort of saying, "It's ridiculous, I knew this man. I sat on his lap when I was a boy."
0:04:28 > 0:04:34His jests "were wont to set the table on a roar". He says, "Where are your jokes now?"
0:04:34 > 0:04:40- Not so funny now!- It is one of the great contemplations of death and mortality and it must be weirder
0:04:40 > 0:04:43when you're doing it to a real person.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48I presume David Tennant knew he was doing it to a chap who wanted it to be a symbol of death.
0:04:48 > 0:04:54It'll be like I'm A Celebrity. Agents are going to put their acts down to have their skulls used...
0:04:54 > 0:04:58"I'll get you your skull. You'll be in Shakespeare...one day!"
0:04:58 > 0:05:04It would be awful if for your whole life you'd wanted to be an actor and it hadn't really worked out,
0:05:04 > 0:05:09so you bequeathed your skull and it was used in a production of Hamlet,
0:05:09 > 0:05:15then all the reviewers said, "I don't know, Yorick, it felt a bit stilted. It ruined that scene."
0:05:15 > 0:05:18LAUGHTER
0:05:18 > 0:05:20Name the Scottish play that Shakespeare wrote.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23- Ah! Taggart.- Taggart!
0:05:23 > 0:05:24LAUGHTER
0:05:24 > 0:05:28It's not... Yeah, you see, you're trying to trick us, aren't you?
0:05:28 > 0:05:33Your tricksy little QI. Two Gentlemen Of...Kilmarnock or something.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35LAUGHTER
0:05:35 > 0:05:36Demon Of Strathclyde.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39Oh, go on, Macbeth!
0:05:39 > 0:05:40- Yes.- Is it?
0:05:40 > 0:05:43LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:05:44 > 0:05:46I was expecting this...
0:05:46 > 0:05:51- HE MIMICS KLAXON - We thought that as actors, you might say, "Never, never!"
0:05:51 > 0:05:53Then you would have got the forfeit.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55I'd have the forfeit.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57Because of course, there is a tradition
0:05:57 > 0:06:01that the very saying of the name Macbeth in a theatre is bad luck.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04You have to sleep with ALL of your co-stars immediately.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Is that what you were told?
0:06:06 > 0:06:08- Yes! Why?- How interesting.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10What?
0:06:10 > 0:06:14Do you know how this came about, this reputation of Macbeth
0:06:14 > 0:06:17for being an unlucky play?
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Is it because Macbeth was the sort of play in a company's repertoire
0:06:21 > 0:06:25that they'd bring out when something closed suddenly?
0:06:25 > 0:06:28Cos it was sort of short and usually went down quite well,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31and so mention of Macbeth would imply that the current production
0:06:31 > 0:06:33- was soon to close. - It's certainly true.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36It is the shortest of the Tragedies, it's a banker,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39people always go and see Macbeth, it's a popular play, um...
0:06:39 > 0:06:43No, there is actually a really specific reason, it was a hoax.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47A late 19th-century wit who was writing a review of Macbeth
0:06:47 > 0:06:49just made up this story that, "This play's cursed, you know."
0:06:49 > 0:06:53It was Max Beerbohm who made this story up entirely.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Although not many years later, in the 1942 production
0:06:56 > 0:06:59- of dear Johnny Gielgud. - Dear, dear, Johnny.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00Yes.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03- Four people died in that production. - SUE: What?!
0:07:03 > 0:07:06- Yes.- Is that the one where they used machine-gun fire...
0:07:06 > 0:07:08to bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane?
0:07:08 > 0:07:12They certainly used searing make-up, didn't they?
0:07:12 > 0:07:16- God, that's fantastic.- It's always good to go with an inflatable crown.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21Yes, the two witches died, the Duncan died and the scene designer.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25The set was then re-designed for a comedy and the principle in that died.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30The radiant Diana Wynyard, a '30s and '40s actress you may remember, there she is.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33She played Lady Macbeth and thought it would be more convincing
0:07:33 > 0:07:36in the sleep walking scene to have her eyes closed.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40- And she walked off the stage into the orchestra pit. - LAUGHTER
0:07:40 > 0:07:43I don't know whether that's Macbeth's curse
0:07:43 > 0:07:45or a being-a-stupid-actress curse.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50They're all watching her going, "Just let her go."
0:07:52 > 0:07:53It's the only way she'll learn.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57Did she carry on going from the sort of bowels of...
0:07:57 > 0:08:00Out damn....SPOT!
0:08:00 > 0:08:02Then she climbed out again, apparently.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Doing it all through rehearsals, "I'm going to carry on."
0:08:05 > 0:08:08There's a few things that weren't, you know, hoaxes,
0:08:08 > 0:08:12were real practical applications, like whistling,
0:08:12 > 0:08:17that was always imbued into... Every time I did a play, it was like, "Don't whistle backstage..."
0:08:17 > 0:08:18You are a terrible whistler.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22Well...maybe it's that. HE WHISTLES BROKENLY
0:08:22 > 0:08:26- No, it's because... Wasn't it that was how they used to cue the scenery coming down?- That's right.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28They used whistles for cues.
0:08:28 > 0:08:29And...
0:08:29 > 0:08:32- You could have a nasty accident. - You could, yeah, exactly.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Isn't it ridiculous though, that the way they got people
0:08:35 > 0:08:38to stop whistling is to say, "It's a superstition, it's bad luck."
0:08:38 > 0:08:41And then people go, "I won't then." People should adopt that with mobile phones.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46You tell people, "You're in the audience of a theatre, you maybe want to turn your phone off,
0:08:46 > 0:08:50so that if somebody rings you, it doesn't spoil it for everyone," people go, "Well...
0:08:50 > 0:08:52"I hear that, but also I'm going to leave my phone on."
0:08:52 > 0:08:56If you tell them it's bad luck, they'll presumably all turn it off."
0:08:56 > 0:08:57Yeah.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01Like a curse, like an ancient curse. Tutankhamen said before he died,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04couldn't abide the sound of the Nokia ring tone.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06LAUGHTER And cursed everyone.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10HE MIMICS NOKIA RING TONE
0:09:12 > 0:09:13I curse all of you.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Or if you put a...
0:09:16 > 0:09:19There was an article in, I don't know, say The Daily Mail,
0:09:19 > 0:09:23- suggesting that other people's disapproval was carcinogenic. - LAUGHTER
0:09:23 > 0:09:25Yes!
0:09:25 > 0:09:26- Very good, brilliant. - APPLAUSE
0:09:26 > 0:09:28Brilliant.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36Or your house price might go down slightly.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39"A tidal wave of immigrants would suddenly invade the country,"
0:09:39 > 0:09:42says Melanie Phillips, would you turn your mobile phone off.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Turn your phone off or Kosovan squirrels will steal your thimbles.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48LAUGHTER
0:09:48 > 0:09:51I was in a theatre not long ago when a phone went off and the actor just said,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53- "Oh, for fuck's sake!" - LAUGHTER
0:09:53 > 0:09:57- Turned to you in the audience... - Not to me!
0:09:57 > 0:09:59I'm glad to say on this occasion.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01There was a time when, um...
0:10:01 > 0:10:04Sometimes doctors are needed on stage.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07When Ralph Richardson suddenly went up and said,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10"Excuse me, is there a doctor in the house?"
0:10:10 > 0:10:13And a man said, "Yes, I'm a doctor." He said, "Oh, Doctor,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15- "isn't this an awful play?" - LAUGHTER
0:10:18 > 0:10:23- The best one is the Pia Zadora. - Oh, the Pia Zadora. It is the greatest, do tell it.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27Pia Zadora, when there was a production of The Diary Of Anne Frank,
0:10:27 > 0:10:30and Pia Zadora was so bad that when the Nazis...
0:10:30 > 0:10:34HE KNOCKS They came downstairs and somebody shouted, "She's in the attic!"
0:10:34 > 0:10:36LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:10:37 > 0:10:39In the attic!
0:10:41 > 0:10:44What about Richard Harris coming on drunk?
0:10:44 > 0:10:48And someone in the audience said, "Harris is drunk!"
0:10:48 > 0:10:50And he stood up, cos he'd fallen down, and he said,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53"If you think I'm drunk wait till you see O'Toole."
0:10:53 > 0:10:55LAUGHTER
0:10:55 > 0:10:58Peter O'Toole was in the Coach & Horses in Soho one lunchtime
0:10:58 > 0:11:03having a drink and he made best friends with the drinker he was standing next to
0:11:03 > 0:11:05and they getting absolutely pissed and...
0:11:05 > 0:11:09O'Toole said, "Um, what shall we do? Let's go and catch a matinee of something."
0:11:09 > 0:11:11So they wandered down Shaftesbury Avenue and said,
0:11:11 > 0:11:14"Let's go here, see if it's any good." They sat down,
0:11:14 > 0:11:15both very drunk.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19And about ten minutes in, Peter O'Toole nudged his friend and said, "You'll like this,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22"this is where I come on... Oh, fuck!"
0:11:22 > 0:11:24LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:11:28 > 0:11:29I love that.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32- Let me get this straight, he knew he had to be somewhere...- Yeah.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36His subconscious took him there somehow, but it all went wrong.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39We were in Edinburgh in this production of 12 Angry Men,
0:11:39 > 0:11:41and one of the jurors fainted on stage
0:11:41 > 0:11:44and his eyes rolled back in his head and he went, "Ugh."
0:11:44 > 0:11:46And his head hit the table, bang! Like that.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50So all of us picked him up, bodily, and carried him off the stage
0:11:50 > 0:11:55and you could see the audience going, "I don't remember a bit where one of the jurors dies."
0:11:55 > 0:11:57LAUGHTER It was terribly...
0:11:57 > 0:12:01It was very hot that year and somebody fainted in the audience as well,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04and she cart-wheeled down through the stairs like this,
0:12:04 > 0:12:06sort of stage...
0:12:06 > 0:12:09and she went... Rag-dolled, all the way down to the front of the stage,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12and people were going, "Huh!" Like that.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14And she knocked over someone in a wheelchair, right?
0:12:14 > 0:12:17And he fell out of his chair, "Ah!" Like that.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21Then the boyfriend got up, came down, saw his girlfriend unconscious,
0:12:21 > 0:12:23and he fainted, right?
0:12:23 > 0:12:26So there was a pile of bodies...
0:12:26 > 0:12:29- at the front of the stage! - How bizarre!
0:12:29 > 0:12:33Very odd thing to faint at the sight of unconsciousness.
0:12:33 > 0:12:34LAUGHTER
0:12:34 > 0:12:39- Not at the sight of blood, just... - I can't bear sleeping people.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42- Oh, my word! Yeah.- It could trigger another and another
0:12:42 > 0:12:45and another, and then the whole world would... If people had it.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49It would be a very low-key version of a zombie movie.
0:12:49 > 0:12:50LAUGHTER
0:12:50 > 0:12:56Oh, yes, Max Beerbohm it was who invented the curse of Macbeth in 1898.
0:12:56 > 0:13:04Leonard Bernstein's musical based on Romeo And Juliet was set in New York. What was it originally called?
0:13:04 > 0:13:07TRUMPET FANFARE
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Was it West Side Story?
0:13:09 > 0:13:11KLAXON SOUNDS
0:13:11 > 0:13:15It became West Side Story, but it was originally called...?
0:13:15 > 0:13:19- East Side Story.- Yes! - APPLAUSE
0:13:19 > 0:13:21BILL: I was so close!
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Originally, when they were working on it in the late '40s,
0:13:28 > 0:13:34it was gangs of Catholics versus gangs of Jews in the Lower East Side, then five years later,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37they decided they wanted Puerto Ricans against white gangs.
0:13:37 > 0:13:43Catholics would just have to tap someone and they'd go, "I wish I hadn't done that. I feel awful now."
0:13:43 > 0:13:48- It's just ten years of terrible guilt. Puerto Ricans are a bit more feisty.- They are.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52- Let's admit that it worked. - Gay and feisty, by the look of them.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56- The world of the musical.- Yeah. - Showgirls all!
0:13:56 > 0:14:00And all their pipes have been airbrushed out of this photograph.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02LAUGHTER
0:14:06 > 0:14:08APPLAUSE
0:14:12 > 0:14:14Oh, heavens above!
0:14:14 > 0:14:21West Side Story may be the best and certainly the best-known musical based on a Shakespearean fable.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24But do you know of any others?
0:14:24 > 0:14:26- Points going...- Kiss Me, Kate.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32- Kiss Me, Kate, yes, by Cole Porter, was based on... - The Taming Of The Shrew.- Exactly.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35- Is Cats based on Hamlet?- No.
0:14:35 > 0:14:42But, odd as that sounds, there is a stage musical playing in London at the moment based on Hamlet.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46- Is it "Hamlet! The Musical"?- No.
0:14:46 > 0:14:52There is "Hamlet! The Musical", but this is a big West End musical based on a big movie
0:14:52 > 0:14:55- that is the story of Hamlet. - Not Spamalot?- No.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00- It's a young prince.- Oh!- Born... - Yes.- He's not a human.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02He's not a human? Is it ET?
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Thank you, audience. The Lion King is based on Hamlet.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08Did you not know?
0:15:08 > 0:15:11At what point does Hamlet say, "Hakuna matata"?
0:15:11 > 0:15:14LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:15:14 > 0:15:18- What about The Tempest? What would they have made of that?- Wicked.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21- The Perfect Storm. - LAUGHTER
0:15:24 > 0:15:26- Speed. Speed 2. - Twister.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30LAUGHTER Harold And Kumar Get The Munchies.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36Prospero's Books is one, but there's a '50s classic sci-fi movie.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40- SHOUT FROM AUDIENCE - The audience are really joining in.- Rip One Out?
0:15:40 > 0:15:46- Forbidden Planet. - Yes, with monsters... - Or its working title, Rip One Out!
0:15:46 > 0:15:49There was one based on The Comedy Of Errors, a musical.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53- What happens in The Comedy Of Errors? - It has two sets of identical twins.
0:15:53 > 0:15:59One of them's shipwrecked, who's a girl, who's a boy? I'm married. Everyone's dead!
0:15:59 > 0:16:05- The Boys From Syracuse is the name of the musical.- Terminator...2.- No!
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Shylock is sent back from the future to...
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Oh, I've got my chain stuck in my ruff!
0:16:12 > 0:16:14LAUGHTER
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Oh, that was embarrassing.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25- Yeah. Hmm...- It sounded like it should sound rude.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27Then you think about it...
0:16:27 > 0:16:30No, not really.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35So, there we are. What do Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James,
0:16:35 > 0:16:40a Looney from Newcastle and the Holy Ghost have in common?
0:16:40 > 0:16:44Mark Twain had a link, but I don't know about the others.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48He was sceptical about Shakespeare because he thought a toff wrote it.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52He didn't believe that a normal boy from Stratford could write properly.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57He was a Shakespearean sceptic, as were the others.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Sigmund Freud also believed that and Henry James
0:17:00 > 0:17:05and Professor Looney, that was unfortunately his name, from Newcastle
0:17:05 > 0:17:09who wrote a book in 1920 called Shakespeare Identified.
0:17:09 > 0:17:15This movement in the 19th century had the idea that Francis Bacon may have written Shakespeare's works,
0:17:15 > 0:17:19particularly a woman, Delia Bacon, an American, completely insane.
0:17:19 > 0:17:25She came over to England and wrote a 625-page book in which she didn't even mention the name Bacon,
0:17:25 > 0:17:29then when she died, she claimed she was the Holy Spirit.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32- SHE claimed SHE was the Holy Spirit? - Yes.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37The Holy Spirit, if she was right, also doesn't believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40There were two other main candidates.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43Hang on. TRUMPET FANFARE
0:17:43 > 0:17:46What was it? LAUGHTER
0:17:46 > 0:17:50- Marlowe.- Christopher Marlowe. - Christopher Marlowe is one.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55- But the most popular one... - Earl of Oxford? - The Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.
0:17:55 > 0:18:01- Is that Edward de Vere? - That's Edward de Vere.- Wow, there's a lot going on there!- There is.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04How did he keep that hat on?
0:18:05 > 0:18:08It's sort of Cate Blanchett with a moustache.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11- LAUGHTER - But there are serious people.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16Freud liked the fact that he lost his father early on like Hamlet.
0:18:16 > 0:18:22Of course, Freud had an Oedipus Complex theory about Hamlet, so he liked that idea.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27Looney invented a fanciful scenario because the Earl of Oxford died in 1604
0:18:27 > 0:18:31and Shakespeare carried on writing plays many years after that.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35That might be the point at which to abandon the theory.
0:18:35 > 0:18:41You'd think. Instead of which, he claimed that before dying, he'd left a whole sheaf of plays
0:18:41 > 0:18:46and that his servant Shakespeare produced them one after the other.
0:18:46 > 0:18:51Isn't The Tempest written four or five years after he died, six years maybe,
0:18:51 > 0:18:55referencing stuff of the time, so after de Vere's dead?
0:18:55 > 0:19:01- Yes, quite.- He probably just left, "Insert topical gag here." - That's right.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06There are... Mark Rylance and Derek Jacobi, both supreme actors,
0:19:06 > 0:19:08they believe it was the Earl of Oxford.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11There isn't a shred of evidence.
0:19:11 > 0:19:17It doesn't matter. On the basis that what Shakespeare means to people is "the guy that wrote those plays",
0:19:17 > 0:19:22so if the guy that wrote those plays is a different guy, that's still, "What a great guy!"
0:19:22 > 0:19:29- Yes.- It's not an earth-shattering conspiracy, really, is it, that perhaps it isn't him?- No.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33Over 5,000 books on the subject, incredibly.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38- It's extraordinary. - Yet no scrap of evidence? - Not real evidence, just speculation.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41They say, "We know so little about Shakespeare."
0:19:41 > 0:19:46There are very few people of the Elizabethan era about whom we know more.
0:19:46 > 0:19:52Ben Jonson, a famous playwright, we don't know where he was born or how many children he had.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56If other people were writing the plays, why didn't they say so at the time?
0:19:56 > 0:20:02- Quite.- They always say, "He didn't write all that." Wouldn't it have come out?
0:20:02 > 0:20:08If it was Ben Jonson or any of those others, jolly good luck to them, I say.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Was it just because he wasn't posh?
0:20:11 > 0:20:15It's snobbery. They think he was just this kid from Warwickshire,
0:20:15 > 0:20:21but his father was a glover which was a decent trade and he went to the grammar school almost certainly.
0:20:21 > 0:20:28He's sort of, you'd think, exactly as far up the society as you'd expect a major writer to be.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32- Yes.- It's not like now the best novels are written by the Duke of Westminster.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34A very good point.
0:20:34 > 0:20:39Those people anyway claim that he didn't write his plays, all those ones we saw,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42but how many words did Shakespeare write?
0:20:42 > 0:20:45SUE: Oh, that would be quite a lot.
0:20:45 > 0:20:46How many different words?
0:20:46 > 0:20:49Yes. Yes, well, there are any number of things here,
0:20:49 > 0:20:53one is simply how many pieces of his handwriting do we have?
0:20:55 > 0:20:58- There's his signature.- There is, a few times, isn't there?
0:20:58 > 0:21:03- He never spelled his name the same twice.- No. And it's pretty wonky writing, it's got to be said.
0:21:03 > 0:21:09- Shacks-poor.- He was probably more used to, you know, typing.
0:21:09 > 0:21:10LAUGHTER
0:21:10 > 0:21:13- He was on the sauce on the top one. - He was on something.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17- That one looks as if it says "galley pot". - LAUGHTER
0:21:17 > 0:21:19The "William" is quite good on one of them.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Anyway, this reinforces some people's arguments who say he got a clerk even to write his name.
0:21:23 > 0:21:30- He couldn't even write his own name. - But could he have theoretically dictated these plays to someone else?
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Well...it's possible. Barbara Cartland used to lay on a sofa and dictate her marvellous novels.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37I think AA Gill, the journalist, dictates, doesn't he?
0:21:37 > 0:21:39Because he has very severe dyslexia,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41I think he does.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43So there are people who do.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47- So, he's got bad handwriting and that means he didn't write any plays.- No.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51But it is surprising we don't have many examples of his handwriting
0:21:51 > 0:21:54because the plays were presumably written out by other people.
0:21:54 > 0:22:00His vocabulary - how many words do you think he used? I'm not counting repeats. "The" he used a lot.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05- Dagger, murder, wife. - This could take us a long time.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08- We've got to start somewhere. - You're right.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12- 5,000.- There are 20,000 words. 20,000 words.
0:22:12 > 0:22:18How does that compare to the average vocabulary of a Briton, would we say, roughly?
0:22:18 > 0:22:22- Four times as much. - No, half as much.- Less.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26We're not saying Shakespeare used every word he knew in his books.
0:22:26 > 0:22:32- He left lots out. I don't remember the word "clitoris" in any of them. - I think it's in the Second Folio.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37It might be. It's about half out of the modern English person's vocabulary.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41He didn't have certain words to call on like "texting" or "vajazzle".
0:22:41 > 0:22:48On the other hand, he did have "guerdon" and "bodkin" and "fardel", which we don't use so much.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53- Yogurt.- I don't suppose Shakespeare knew what yogurt was.- Broadband.
0:22:53 > 0:22:54Broadband.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58"Activia Pouring Yogurt" was a phrase you never heard him say.
0:22:58 > 0:22:59I can't get my head round...
0:22:59 > 0:23:02- He'd have used that if it had existed.- Yes.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06If I were to say I couldn't get my head round Activia Pouring Yogurt,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10it would sound peculiar, but why would we want to pour a yogurt?
0:23:10 > 0:23:12- What you want is pouring furniture. - Ah, yes!
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Because it's quite difficult getting furniture to move.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17If you could pour the furniture where you wanted it,
0:23:17 > 0:23:20- and to the extent you wanted it... - Then it sets.- Exactly.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23If could be made out of that thing Terminator 2 is made out of.
0:23:23 > 0:23:24- Yeah.- Yes, exactly.
0:23:24 > 0:23:26They've got that already. Concrete.
0:23:26 > 0:23:27Oh, yes.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32Well, I... You try and make a piano out of concrete.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34I will. I'll give it a bloody good go.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36Essentially, you want spray-on wood, don't you?
0:23:36 > 0:23:38I'm not talking about Viagra.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40- Hey! - You could sort of go...
0:23:40 > 0:23:44You could go, "Tssh, tssh, tssh, tssh, tssh, tssh," and have a chair.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46The future is 3D printing, is it not?
0:23:46 > 0:23:48- Have you seen that? - It's amazing!- Extraordinary.
0:23:48 > 0:23:49I've seen that.
0:23:49 > 0:23:51That's some kind of voodoo.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53It really is phenomenal. Phenomenal.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55So it can create a 3D object?
0:23:55 > 0:23:58- Yes.- You put an object into a case, like that.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01- Like a vole, so I've got a vole. - Say a vole.
0:24:01 > 0:24:02Well, maybe not a... Yeah, a vole.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06But you'd have to have it sedated in some way,
0:24:06 > 0:24:07cos you wouldn't want it moving around.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11It's been very humanely treated, it's sleeping.
0:24:11 > 0:24:12It's sleeping and probably laminated.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16And then you press a button and then you leave it for a few hours
0:24:16 > 0:24:18and you come back and there's another vole!
0:24:18 > 0:24:20That's cloning! How come that's...?
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Lasers make calibrations of exactly every single detail of it.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26I mean, really, really complex things can be printed.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28What's it made of, then?
0:24:28 > 0:24:30- It can be of different things. - Plastic.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32- Plastics and resins and so on. - Marzipan.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34I've seen some really complex...
0:24:34 > 0:24:35- Marzipan?!- ..things.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40You can make a marzipan vole? Ah! The wonders of technology!
0:24:40 > 0:24:44Thank God! After all those years of postgraduate research.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47- Hallelujah. - And we have a marzipan vole finally.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50Wheel, steam engine, microchip, marzipan vole.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53It's the decline of human civilisation!
0:24:53 > 0:24:57That's when we knew it had all gone wrong, with a Battenberg rodent.
0:24:57 > 0:24:58Oh, well.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00Still, there are a lot of words.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04In The Sun, David Crystal, a well-known linguistic fellow,
0:25:04 > 0:25:09estimated there would be about 6,000 words in any complete history of The Sun,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12whereas the King James Bible has just 8,000.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16The idea that we're dumbed down to a lower vocabulary may not be true.
0:25:16 > 0:25:21Shakespeare coined over 1,000 new words, but not all caught on.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25Here are some that didn't. See if you can put them into a sentence.
0:25:25 > 0:25:31- Swoltery. Quatch.- I've got a swoltery quatch at the moment.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35Already we're there, aren't we?
0:25:39 > 0:25:43It happened when I put my kickie-wickies on.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46I cockled me foxship! I've always been near-legged.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49- You're a boggler in those. - I've boggled me carlot.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Your Foxship, what happened to cockled boggler?
0:25:53 > 0:25:58- Carlot - that's a thing. - A sexy garage.- It's true, actually.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03- Ahead of its time.- Way ahead. - A boggler is a very clumsy burglar.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10A burglar that can't believe the stuff he's getting his hands on!
0:26:10 > 0:26:13"Look at this DVD player!"
0:26:13 > 0:26:16He used it to mean a hesitator. One who boggles.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19I don't know if it's as in boggling the mind.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23What is a kickie-wickie? Is it Russell Brand's football?
0:26:23 > 0:26:28It's an affectionate term for a wife. "Ah, my dear kickie-wickie."
0:26:28 > 0:26:31That's not an affectionate term!
0:26:31 > 0:26:33Domestic violence was a lot more acceptable...
0:26:33 > 0:26:37Ah, the old smashie-washie.
0:26:37 > 0:26:39The old battery-wattery.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41Punchy-wunchy.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45And the quatch? Or is it a quatch? It's actually an adjective.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48Quatch. It means to be a bit podgy.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50- A bit quatchy?- Yeah.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53Luckily, I'm wearing a surgical truss.
0:26:53 > 0:26:58- Plump, shall we say? Wappened is corrupt.- Wappened.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02That's never really caught on, but look at the ones that did.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05Here's just a small example of words first used in Shakespeare.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08Accessible, acutely, assembled...
0:27:08 > 0:27:13even-handed, eyeball, Frenchwoman, hunchbacked, neglected, overpower,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16radiant, revealing, rose-cheeked, schooldays....
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Frenchwoman? That's a bit of a stretch.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21LAUGHTER
0:27:22 > 0:27:24He invented it.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27He invented taking the space out.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29Yes, well done.
0:27:29 > 0:27:30Even-handed.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33"Zis is my wife. She's a...
0:27:33 > 0:27:37"A thingummyjig. I don't know. What can I call her?
0:27:37 > 0:27:39"Oh, Frenchwoman!"
0:27:39 > 0:27:42- BRUMMIE:- "I think you'll find she's a Frenchwoman."
0:27:42 > 0:27:47You can't be absolutely certain. They may have been in use before,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50but he is often the first printed source we have.
0:27:50 > 0:27:55He'd have to have a pretty good idea that people would understand him.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57Yes, exactly.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59Also, there are phrases he came up with,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02and those now have come into the realm of cliche,
0:28:02 > 0:28:06so much so that we can't imagine that they didn't exist in the English language.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08There are very many. We have a list here -
0:28:08 > 0:28:09"Be all and end all,"
0:28:09 > 0:28:12"laid on with a trowel," "laughing stock,"
0:28:12 > 0:28:15"more in sorrow than anger," "once more into the breach,"
0:28:15 > 0:28:19"one fell swoop," "to play fast and loose," "there's the rub..."
0:28:19 > 0:28:21How did he say, "What the Dickens"?!
0:28:21 > 0:28:24Dickens didn't come along for another 250 years!
0:28:24 > 0:28:26Exactly. "A wild goose chase," that's one of his.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28"A heart of gold," "high time."
0:28:28 > 0:28:31"The game's up," "forever and a day,"
0:28:31 > 0:28:33"dead as a doornail," that's one of his.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36"Foregone conclusion." And, of course, many more that aren't there.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39"To the manor born," "cruel to be kind."
0:28:39 > 0:28:42Basically the title of every programme we'll ever need.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Yes. He did give a lot of titles, didn't he?
0:28:45 > 0:28:48If you're having trouble making up a programme title,
0:28:48 > 0:28:49open your Shakespeare.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52Yes, go to the Shakespeare randomiser.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55- Oh, I've done it again.- Oh, no. LAUGHTER
0:28:55 > 0:28:57You know...
0:28:57 > 0:29:02This bit of ruff is not behaving. I've said that before.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06- LAUGHTER - Oh, dear, oh, dear.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10So there we are. Call me a swoltery boggler if you like,
0:29:10 > 0:29:11but answer me this.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15How did Dangerous Dan Tucker clean up Shakespeare?
0:29:15 > 0:29:18DRAMATIC: Oh, I sense I'm falling into a pit, but I shall do it anyway.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21I don't know why I'm speaking like that, it's the hat.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25Did he do an abridged version? Take out the mucky bits like the boggling...?
0:29:25 > 0:29:26KLAXON BLARES
0:29:26 > 0:29:28Oh, no, he didn't, I'm afraid.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31He didn't take out the rude bits. People did, as we know.
0:29:31 > 0:29:36- Think of his name, "Dangerous Dan," what does that make you think of? - It makes me think of the Wild West.
0:29:36 > 0:29:38Yes, stay in the Wild West.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41What did people with names like Dangerous Dan...?
0:29:41 > 0:29:45When they cleaned something up, it was unlikely to be a cupboard or a spare bedroom.
0:29:45 > 0:29:46- They shot people.- Outlaws.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49It would be a town. He cleaned up the town of Shakespeare.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52- "Clean up this town." - There was a town called Shakespeare.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54- There it is. It's now a ghost town. - Wow.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57That looks like a fun way to spend a weekend(!)
0:29:57 > 0:30:02It's in New Mexico, and it was lawless, back in the day.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05So they sent for Dangerous Dan, who was a pretty violent sheriff.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07Hence the "Dangerous" bit.
0:30:07 > 0:30:09Well, quite. He really was dangerous, too.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12He'd already been city marshal in Silver City,
0:30:12 > 0:30:14where, as a deputy sheriff, he killed a drunken man
0:30:14 > 0:30:17who was standing on the street, throwing rocks at people.
0:30:17 > 0:30:18He went up and shot him.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20So he didn't put up with bad behaviour.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23- He was a zero tolerance sheriff. - Yeah.
0:30:23 > 0:30:25So within the space of a few months in Shakespeare,
0:30:25 > 0:30:27he shot dead a cattle rustler,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30he killed a man who rode into a hotel riding a horse...
0:30:30 > 0:30:31Oh, come on!
0:30:31 > 0:30:34..arrested and hanged the outlaw Russian Bill Tattenbaum
0:30:34 > 0:30:36for stealing a horse
0:30:36 > 0:30:40and hanged Sandy King for "being a damned nuisance."
0:30:42 > 0:30:44Thank God they can't do that any more!
0:30:44 > 0:30:46Well, quite. He'd been "a damned nuisance."
0:30:46 > 0:30:50There's only about 17 people who'd live in those houses.
0:30:50 > 0:30:52Yeah, he wiped out the entire population.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55- "No more trouble here!"- Yeah.
0:30:55 > 0:31:00Of course, the little trap you fell into, the rewriting of Shakespeare,
0:31:00 > 0:31:03was primarily the work of a famous couple, whose name was...?
0:31:03 > 0:31:04Richard and Judy.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08- The Bowdlers.- Oh, Bowdler. - The Bowdlers, indeed.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10- Absolutely, the Bowdlers. - Thomas Bowdler.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13Thomas and Harriet Bowdler. Let's not forget Harriet.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16She was particularly strong with her blue pencil.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18If she saw a word like "swoggle" or something.
0:31:18 > 0:31:23They brought out children's editions of Shakespeare, where the bloody, nasty bits were cut out.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Did they give the tragedies happy endings?
0:31:26 > 0:31:29Nahum Tate wrote a version of King Lear with a happy ending.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32And that was very popular for over 100 years.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35- People like happy endings. - They do, don't they?
0:31:35 > 0:31:38I say give them what they want - big song at the end.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Funnily enough, they did they give them what they wanted,
0:31:41 > 0:31:44big song at the end - even after a tragedy, on would come a comic
0:31:44 > 0:31:47and do a jig and make a lot of jokes about the tragedy.
0:31:47 > 0:31:48That's the way...
0:31:48 > 0:31:51So they'd blow wind, crack your cheeks, "My mother-in-law..."
0:31:51 > 0:31:55- Exactly. - "Don't worry, it was all pretend."
0:31:55 > 0:31:57SHE HUMS A COMIC DITTY
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Now, how did Shakespeare's Bottom get to Norwich?
0:32:03 > 0:32:05Are there relics? Bits of him?
0:32:05 > 0:32:10He had a famous comedian who played Bottom and Falstaff.
0:32:10 > 0:32:15- Who did?- Shakespeare. And he created them for him. He was the funniest man in England.
0:32:15 > 0:32:21And his name is sometimes put. It says Kemp instead of Bottom on the original play script
0:32:21 > 0:32:25because it was so obviously Kemp who would play him. Will Kemp.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28But he had a dreadful falling out with Shakespeare
0:32:28 > 0:32:30or whoever ran the company, Burbage or somebody,
0:32:30 > 0:32:32and he went off in a right huff.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35But he decided as a publicity stunt to Morris dance
0:32:35 > 0:32:40- all the way to Norwich from London. - That's unnecessary.
0:32:40 > 0:32:41LAUGHTER
0:32:41 > 0:32:44It took him about three weeks, but he did it over nine days
0:32:44 > 0:32:49- and a famous phrase comes from this. - Cocking about?
0:32:49 > 0:32:51Er, no.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54Making a right tit of yourself?
0:32:54 > 0:32:59Kemp's nine days wonder. It's where "a nine days wonder" comes from.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01He just did it for publicity.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04"I may have left Shakespeare's company, but I'm the man
0:33:04 > 0:33:06"and they will go down now."
0:33:06 > 0:33:11Quite the reverse happened. He went off to Italy and died in penury.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14- His gravestone says, "Kemp. A man." - LAUGHTER
0:33:14 > 0:33:20And after he left, the first play Shakespeare wrote was Henry V in which Falstaff dies offstage.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23Kemp was kind of got rid of that way
0:33:23 > 0:33:26and a new man called Armin came in and played the comedians.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30While we're on the subject of Will Kemp and his Morris dancing,
0:33:30 > 0:33:33what do you call a group of Morris dancers?
0:33:33 > 0:33:34An arse.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37- A swarm?- A swarm...
0:33:37 > 0:33:40- An embarrassment.- Oh...
0:33:40 > 0:33:43A plague?
0:33:43 > 0:33:44A bell-end.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46A bell-end!
0:33:46 > 0:33:52- LAUGHTER - Honestly, poor old Britain. We've got one folk tradition in England
0:33:52 > 0:33:55- and all we do is laugh at it. - It's true.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59It really generates hostility, Morris dancing. I think...
0:33:59 > 0:34:04- We're so mean about it.- I think we think they're up to something.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07BILL: A perve of Morris dancers!
0:34:07 > 0:34:10I think it's very valuable that we can point to that
0:34:10 > 0:34:13and say, "See? It's a free country."
0:34:13 > 0:34:17LAUGHTER They're not doing that in Afghanistan!
0:34:17 > 0:34:22If we were going to ban anything, we'd ban that.
0:34:22 > 0:34:28What'll happen is if this scene of all of us dressed like this now and this photograph behind us
0:34:28 > 0:34:34is shown, we'll end up as an "And finally..." section on foreign news programmes.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39"Les anglais... Haha!" LAUGHTER
0:34:39 > 0:34:42It's known as a side, anyway.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45- A side.- A group of Morris men.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47No-one quite knows where it comes from.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50They think it's from Moorish
0:34:50 > 0:34:55to celebrate the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58Certainly not pagan and mystical or anything.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02It's pretty recent. 14th century is the earliest you can go back to it.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05There are 150 sides now registered in the USA,
0:35:05 > 0:35:09so American Morris dancing is taking off in a BIG way!
0:35:09 > 0:35:13- That's three per state, on average. - AMERICAN:- "I've joined a bell-end!"
0:35:14 > 0:35:18"This is what they do in Old England.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22- "Merry England."- There's an Arctic Morris group based in Helsinki.
0:35:22 > 0:35:29But now time to visit that undiscovered country from whose bourn no idiot returns,
0:35:29 > 0:35:34as we bring down the curtain on general ignorance. Sound trumpets! Farewell, sour annoy!
0:35:34 > 0:35:38For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. Fingers on buzzers.
0:35:38 > 0:35:43What best describes, in one word, Richard III's appearance?
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Hunchback! KLAXON SOUNDS
0:35:47 > 0:35:49No!
0:35:49 > 0:35:53No, there's no evidence at all that Richard III had a hunched back.
0:35:53 > 0:35:58It's just the black propaganda of the Tudors who succeeded him.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01- The character in the play does. - Certainly.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04And a sort of twisted arm.
0:36:04 > 0:36:09A bottled spider is one of the things he's called. Hideous name.
0:36:09 > 0:36:13It seems he was rather a decent fellow. Intelligent, kind.
0:36:13 > 0:36:19A man called Polydore Vergil, a historian determined to paint him as black as possible,
0:36:19 > 0:36:24described him as ugly. They associated ugliness with wickedness.
0:36:24 > 0:36:29So while on that sort of thing, how beautiful was Cleopatra?
0:36:29 > 0:36:32She was minging.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35A bit weird looking, but striking?
0:36:35 > 0:36:38- Yes, that's probably fair. - Bit of a weird nose?
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Long nose. It seems possible she had a long, pointy nose.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45There's no contemporary suggestion that she was particularly beautiful.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50- She had a very beautiful voice and was charismatic.- She seemed sexy.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53She seemed sexy, which I find is half the battle.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59Her mouth is very small. It only extends as far as her nostril.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02That isn't necessarily Cleopatra.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06- No?- That's just a woman... - An artist's impression.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09Just a woman going mad with some napkins.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11Yeah, she's gone serviette crazy.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,"
0:37:17 > 0:37:22as Enobarbus said about her. How did Christopher Marlowe die?
0:37:22 > 0:37:25- Well, now... - DRAMATIC FANFARE
0:37:25 > 0:37:26Da-dum!
0:37:26 > 0:37:29- Yes?- Let me say it so you can mock me.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32He died in a bar brawl by being stabbed.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35KLAXON SOUNDS
0:37:35 > 0:37:40Oh, dear me. He was stabbed, but not in a tavern brawl.
0:37:40 > 0:37:43It was thought so for many years,
0:37:43 > 0:37:47but it wasn't until 1925 that the documents came to light
0:37:47 > 0:37:54that showed he was killed at the house of a Mrs Eleanor Bull by a man called Ingram Frizer,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57with whom he'd spent the day and argued over the bill.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00Over a bill? That's a bit harsh.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04- "I only had a mineral water!" - Yes, exactly.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07- So it wasn't a tavern?- No.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10What was the bill for, then? A restaurant?
0:38:10 > 0:38:13- A pop-up restaurant! - They call it a tavern.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16It was a smart restaurant, but went downhill after that stabbing.
0:38:16 > 0:38:19- It might have been a prostitute. - Right.- A brothel.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22SUE: So a brothel bill.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25"I didn't have that. No."
0:38:25 > 0:38:29To be honest, the service charge is redundant.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33"I had one of them, two of them.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36"I asked for that, but it never happened."
0:38:36 > 0:38:38It was off.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42"If we all chip in, we can afford that."
0:38:42 > 0:38:46Why don't we just get one big one and all have a bit?
0:38:48 > 0:38:52Oh, I don't know... Oh, no. Dear me. Anyway...
0:38:52 > 0:38:54He was unlikely to be in a brothel.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57He didn't trust anyone who didn't love tobacco or boys.
0:38:57 > 0:39:02- Ah, well. - Anyway, what made Lord Byron limp?
0:39:02 > 0:39:06LAUGHTER That's a follow-up question.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09Item four on the brothel bill?
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Eight hours of Morris dancing?
0:39:13 > 0:39:16He had, from birth, a pronounced limp.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19L-I-M-P. Pronounced "limp".
0:39:19 > 0:39:23They're not sure if he had a club foot.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26We know that, in fact, he didn't have a club foot.
0:39:26 > 0:39:30It's often said that he did. That's what people have heard of.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33He had a sort of withered leg, and you can tell from his boots.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35He was very athletic and hated this limp,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38but he swam the Hellespont and he boxed
0:39:38 > 0:39:41and was very worried about his weight.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44He was possibly an early male anorexic.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47And he liked to spend money, did old Byron.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52He ordered batches of two dozen at a time of white linen trousers, which he only wore once,
0:39:52 > 0:39:55and silk handkerchiefs in batches of 100.
0:39:55 > 0:40:00Each one was nine guineas, an average man's pay for the year.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05Was he coining it in with the writing at this time?
0:40:05 > 0:40:10He inherited at an early age, which he spent very fast,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13but he was, in fact, incredibly highly paid.
0:40:13 > 0:40:18For every canto of Don Juan, his last great masterpiece, he got thousands.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21So he'd run out of hankies, "Oh, I'll write another canto."
0:40:21 > 0:40:23He was hugely successful.
0:40:23 > 0:40:29- White linen trousers?- Yes.- Sounds like something out of Miami Vice.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31It does a bit. He had to leave England
0:40:31 > 0:40:35because there was a scandal about him possibly having had sex with...
0:40:35 > 0:40:36..a young...
0:40:36 > 0:40:38BILL: ..goat.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41LAUGHTER
0:40:41 > 0:40:44He kept a bear at Cambridge in his rooms.
0:40:44 > 0:40:51The Master of Trinity said, "The rules are absolutely clear. No domestic animals."
0:40:51 > 0:40:56He said, "I assure you, Master, he's not domestic. He's entirely wild."
0:40:56 > 0:40:58So he was allowed to keep it.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01There was a rumour that he'd shagged his sister.
0:41:01 > 0:41:05- I thought you were going to say the bear!- No!
0:41:05 > 0:41:10- As far as I know...- Is that more horrific than shagging your sister?
0:41:10 > 0:41:12- It's just different, really.- It is.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14It's probably braver.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16LAUGHTER
0:41:16 > 0:41:20Lord Byron limped because of an abnormality in one leg,
0:41:20 > 0:41:21but it wasn't a club foot.
0:41:21 > 0:41:24Now what can the Queen do that an idiot can't?
0:41:28 > 0:41:31By the looks of it, kill people with their own eyes.
0:41:33 > 0:41:38- She doesn't look in the best mood. - "One tires of Morris dancing..."
0:41:38 > 0:41:42This is something she's allowed to do, but doesn't,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45- that an idiot is not allowed to do. - Drive? Vote?- Vote.
0:41:45 > 0:41:47Most people think the Queen can't vote.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50She has every right to vote, as any citizen,
0:41:50 > 0:41:52but she's never exercised that, as far as we know.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55But idiots are not allowed to vote.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58And lunatics may only vote during their lucid periods.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00LAUGHTER
0:42:00 > 0:42:03They test them on the way in.
0:42:03 > 0:42:08Most people think the Royals can't vote. They just choose not to.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12Alas, alack and well away, our revels now are ended.
0:42:12 > 0:42:18All spirits are now melted into air, into thin air, and we must consult the scores.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20Oh, my gracious heavens.
0:42:20 > 0:42:26I'm afraid, rather down the bottom of the list, with minus 14...
0:42:26 > 0:42:29- Bill Bailey! - APPLAUSE
0:42:32 > 0:42:36And four to the better with minus 10, Sue Perkins!
0:42:36 > 0:42:38APPLAUSE
0:42:43 > 0:42:48Second witch, with a very creditable plus 3, Alan Davies!
0:42:48 > 0:42:50CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:42:50 > 0:42:52Very good.
0:42:52 > 0:42:57But tonight's Prince of Denmark with six points is David Mitchell!
0:42:57 > 0:42:59CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:43:05 > 0:43:11Well, it only remains for me to thank our dramatis personae - Sue, David, Bill and Alan -
0:43:11 > 0:43:14and leave you with this perceptive thought from Robert Wilensky.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards
0:43:17 > 0:43:20"could produce the complete works of Shakespeare,
0:43:20 > 0:43:23"but now, thanks to the internet, we know that this is not true."
0:43:23 > 0:43:24Good night.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd