I Am Shakespeare Read online

SALESMAN. Yes. You know you can watch Friends on your T-Mobile network phone for only sixteen pounds ninety-nine pence a month.

  FRANK hangs up. We hear the chimes of six o’clock.

  Scene Two

  The Big Secret Chat-Show Opening Gambit

  As FRANK hangs up the telephone, the clock strikes the hour.

  We see FRANK hurriedly prepare to start the show. He turns the camera on and a dark picture appears on the internet screens hanging above the set in the theatre.

  From behind the proscenium, his arm reaches out quickly through the curtain with a remote control that he aims at the CD player and the lights. Pre-arranged theme music begins to play, and lights come up on the proscenium and curtain that FRANK has placed on his desk. The image appears on the screens above.

  FRANK’s hand and arm, in an Elizabethan sleeve with lace, extends through the curtain holding a feather, as if to complete the writing on the scroll of parchment before him.

  He begins to speak ominously in two voices from behind the curtain, while he points with the feather to the Latin heraldry around the frame. The two voices are his imagination of an actor speaking the first line in Hamlet and his own host voice.

  FRANK. Who’s there?

  Pointing to ‘MENTE VIDEBORI’.

  Mente Videbori! By the mind I shall be seen!

  NAY ANSWER ME?

  Pointing to ‘VIVITUR IN GENIO’.

  Vivitur in Genio! One lives in one’s genius.

  STAND AND UNFOLD YOURSELF!

  Pointing to ‘CAETERA MORTIS ERUNT’, with the help of his other modern arm as he can’t reach round with the Elizabethan arm.

  Caetera Mortis Erunt! All else passes away.

  Opening the curtain and sticking his head through.

  Ladies and gentlemen, wherever you are on the World Wide Web, you come most carefully upon your hour, for ’tis now struck six, and ’tis time to welcome each and every one of you to another international broadcast of Who’s There? The only live internet chat-room show that dares to ask the question ‘Who really wrote the plays of William Shakespeare?’ The first in our brand-new season.

  FRANK presses an applause pedal with his foot, and blackout with his remote. Music swells. In the darkness, FRANK lifts the prop curtain frame out off the desk. He sits down, straightens himself and brings up the show lighting state while also fading the music with another remote. Running across the top of the screen or appearing at intervals are the words:

  ‘Don’t be like the rest – silent. You can call or text Frank right now on 0845-475-1564.’

  ‘I want to hear your views! Calls are charged at local rates.’

  FRANK reads from cards like David Letterman.

  Hello. I’m Frank Charlton, your host tonight.

  FRANK starts mystery music and points to a list of names and faces stuck on a board:

  ‘Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Galsworthy, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Sir John Gielgud, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Dr Sigmund Freud, Daphne du Maurier, and Sir Derek Jacobi.’

  Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Sir John Gielgud, Charlie Chaplin…

  BARRY, FRANK’s neighbour, enters the garage through the back door, trying not to disturb.

  Barry? Orson Welles, Dr Sigmund Freud, Daphne du Maurier, Sir Derek Jacobi, and all the rest.

  Who are they? What do all these famous people have in common?

  BARRY. Guttering.

  FRANK. What?

  BARRY. Have you got any guttering?

  FRANK. I don’t know. I’m live on air, Barry.

  BARRY gets out the stepladder.

  They are all people who have expressed doubt that the actor William Shakespeare wrote the plays. That’s right. We’re just reasonable people, with a reasonable doubt. Are you one of us?

  There is a teddy bear attached to the camera tripod.

  BARRY. Talk to teddy! Don’t just talk at the camera, like that. Talk as if you’re really talking with someone. Talk to teddy! Lighten up. Relax. Tell them about the jokes and the special guest.

  FRANK plays a piece of music to show he’s not all doom and gloom.

  FRANK. Now, to show you that we authorship researchers aren’t all doom and gloom, something new this season: the Best Authorship Joke Competition!

  Applause.

  All right. My producers have just agreed that the winner of this competition will get to be a guest on the show! Fancy being on the show with someone like my super-special guest this evening?

  He uncovers a cardboard cut-out of the upper body of Kenneth Branagh, which was pre-placed on the guest chair next to the desk. He adjusts the camera to pick up the guest.

  Kenneth Branagh!

  BARRY. And use the sound effects I gave you.

  BARRY taps the sound-effect pedal. We hear a loud hysterical voice saying, ‘That’s funny, that’s really funny!’

  No, the other one!

  He taps the ‘Dive, dive!’ submarine sound effect, and then the ecstatic applause button, and FRANK stops the music. Very upset.

  FRANK. No, Barry! This is what I’m talking about. Unrehearsed technical bits. It doesn’t give the right impression.

  BARRY. Sorry, Frank.

  Silence.

  FRANK. It’s not an entertainment.

  Silence.

  BARRY. I’d just like to say to anyone out there that, since you started doing Who’s There?, the Shakespeare authorship question has really changed the way I look at everything.

  FRANK. Really?

  BARRY. Yes, I can’t think of any part of my life that hasn’t been affected.

  FRANK. You’ve never said that before. Thanks. Can you give us an example of how it’s affected your life?

  Pause.

  BARRY. Can I think about that and get back to you?

  FRANK. Certainly. May I just say, Barry, that you are the best musical director I could get. Really. The best in Maidstone. I don’t think there are many internet chat shows that have a musical director who’s had a top-twenty hit.

  BARRY. Oh, don’t embarrass me, Frank. (Sotto.) Mention Top of the Pops.

  FRANK. Oh yes. Barry here was on Top of the Pops. When was that, Barry?

  BARRY. Oh, I can’t remember. May the 17th, 1985.

  FRANK. With his unforgettable hit song… ‘God loves spunky… spotty knick-knacks’?

  BARRY. ‘I Am a Sputnik Love God’.

  FRANK. Terrific. And twenty-two years later, here you are, still churning out the hits.

  BARRY. Well, I…

  BARRY gives him a look. To break the moment, FRANK steps on the submarine sound effect. BARRY exits.

  FRANK. Oh no! You know what that means, ladies and gentlemen! It’s time for the first of our TOP-TEN LIST OF REASONS TO QUESTION THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS. Thanks for dropping by, Barry. Ladies and gentlemen, Barry Wild.

  FRANK sets off applause and then new music. ‘Whole Lotta Love’ by Led Zeppelin. He lifts a bust of William Shakespeare onto the desk, opens the head and reaches inside.

  I’ll just reach into my Shakespeare or Bust and see what comes out first!

  So, Reason Number Ten.

  If the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the sonnets, plays and poems of Shakespeare, which contain the largest vocabulary of any known writer in history, over twenty-five thousand words – that’s more than three times the vocabulary used in the King James Bible – including nearly two thousand new words never written before – if those plays are drawn from well over a hundred books in Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Greek – if those plays are so accurate about life that specialists in at least thirty-one specialist subjects, from soldiering to navigation at sea… In fact, here they are on the bottom of your screen.

  Across the bottom of the internet screens we can read a running list of all the subjects that are accurately described or employed by the author of the Shakespeare plays.

  You see… they
’re going a bit fast to read but… there they are… ranging from esoteric Neoplatonic philosophy to… angling; all those specialists assert that the author must have had direct experience of their subject…

  The question is HOW, HOW, HOW did that small-town actor acquire all this knowledge and life experience?

  WHAT DOES FRANK SAY?

  You can be born with genius, folks, but you can’t be born with book-learning or life experience.

  Picking up a First Folio with a picture of Shakespeare on the front.

  Mr Shakespeare, at present your life story and the book-learning and life experience in these plays, don’t match.

  The phone on FRANK’s desk starts ringing. FRANK looks at it in surprise.

  Fantastic! The phones are ringing. Stay with us, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s take some calls and move this historic debate forward.

  Picking up the phone.

  Hello. This is Frank Charlton, your host on Who’s There? What’s your question?

  We hear BARRY speaking with a thick Scottish accent.

  BARRY. Hello, this is Derek Jacobi.

  FRANK. Derek Jacobi?

  BARRY. Yes, Derek Jacobi.

  FRANK. Oh my God… Derek? I mean, Sir Jacobi. I left a message last year, but I never thought you would call back…

  Pause.

  Do you mean Sir Derek Jacobi the actor or another man with the same name?

  BARRY. Yes, the actor. It’s me, actor Sir Derek Jacobi.

  FRANK. I didn’t know you were Scottish?

  BARRY. Yes, Scottish.

  Pause.

  Hold on, I’m just putting on my porridge… oh, I love some salt in my porridge… there we go. Now, I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your show…

  FRANK. Barry?

  Silence.

  For God’s sake, Barry. You’ve no idea the day I’ve had today. I’ve got a meeting in the morning with the headmaster and loads of parents; accused of upsetting the boys’ fragile sense of identity by questioning the identity of Shakespeare in class.

  BARRY. How did you know it was me?

  FRANK. Derek Jacobi’s not Scottish.

  BARRY. It’s the only accent I can do. I thought it might help.

  FRANK. Well, it didn’t.

  He hangs up. Looks at the camera.

  FRANK takes down a framed letter from the back wall of the set and approaches the camera downstage on its tripod. His face and the letter appear as large as possible on the screens above.

  You see this, ladies and gentlemen? Do you know what it is? This is the letter rejecting my PhD by one of our top universities.

  And do you want to know why my PhD was rejected? Here’s the title: The Identity of the Author of the Shakespeare Works? A Question of Reasonable Doubt. That’s right. The one question you can’t ask at university. The one question you are not allowed to ask on the International Shakespeare Website. Wikipedia!

  I mean, it’s like telling Galileo that he can look at the heavens through his telescope but only if he looks at the moon! As long as an open inquiry into the cause of these works is suppressed, how can we really understand their incredible beauty and humanity? As long as this unbelievable situation exists, this rejection letter stays framed on my wall and I stay here… still searching for the true identity of William Shakespeare!

  Scene Three

  The First Guest Ever: William Shakespeare

  There are two knocks on the door.

  FRANK. Who’s there?

  SHAKSPAR. Frank.

  FRANK. Who is it?

  WILLIAM SHAKSPAR enters.

  SHAKSPAR. Hello, Frank.

  FRANK. Who are you?

  SHAKSPAR. Who do you think I am?

  FRANK. Who do you think you are?

  SHAKSPAR. No, who do you think I am? And more to the point, why do you think I am anyone other than who I actually am?

  FRANK. What?

  SHAKSPAR. Why do you do it, Frank?

  FRANK. Why do I do what?

  SHAKSPAR. Why do you get yourself in such a twist about who I am? Haven’t you got better things to do? You don’t need this to make you special. You should be proud of being just an ordinary good old teacher like your father, Tom.

  FRANK. How do you know I’m a teacher? How do you know my father’s name?

  SHAKSPAR. So what’s this all about? Books, books, books. Do you know there are more books about my play Hamlet than there are about the Bible? But then, I had a head start. There wasn’t an English Bible until a few years after Hamlet.

  FRANK. Have you been sent here by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust?

  SHAKSPAR. No.

  FRANK. The Shakespeare Institute?

  SHAKSPAR. No.

  FRANK begins to speak.

  No.

  FRANK. Is this some sort of joke?

  SHAKSPAR. You can’t fathom me, can you? Do you really think people have to be extraordinary themselves to do extraordinary things? I lived a thousand extraordinary lives in my writing – so many kings, lovers, murderers. They tired me out, Frank. But that’s not who I am.

  FRANK. You dress up as William Shakespeare, break into my studio, hijack my show and then…

  SHAKSPAR. It’s time you stopped, Frank. Please. Let it go. I don’t want to be man of the millennium. I just want a good millennium sleep. Every time you challenge me, some fool starts another penetrating biography: ‘Closer to Shakespeare’, ‘Shakespeare, The Player’, ‘Shakespeare, The Lost Years’, ‘Shakespeare for All Time’. Each one’s like an electric shock in my sleep, waking me up again. If I had known what it’s like to be a ghost, I never would have given them such small parts.

  We see BARRY running round the outside of the garage.

  FRANK. You think you can come in here, pretending to be William Shakespeare, sabotage my show…

  BARRY rushes in.

  Scene Four

  The Interruption of the Neighbour’s Musical Genius

  SHAKSPAR looks at the books.

  BARRY enters, making sure he doesn’t forget a song he’s just composed in his head.

  BARRY. I’ve got a song, Frank. After I rang you I went out with the guttering and BAM! I’VE GOT IT! After twenty-two years, my follow-up! ‘Long Green Summer Grass’. It’s got it all. Love in the afternoon. The great flood. It’s like a green love anthem. Sort of Al Gore meets Barry White!

  SHAKSPAR. Hello, Barry.

  BARRY sees SHAKSPAR.

  BARRY. What are you doing?

  FRANK. What are you doing?

  [BARRY. Who’s that?

  FRANK. Yes. Who’s that?

  BARRY. Why?

  FRANK. Why what?

  BARRY. What?

  FRANK. Why?]

  BARRY. Why do something like this without telling me? Hiring a lookalike. I don’t think that’s very professional, you know, to keep secrets from your musical director. I thought we were working together on this. Oh, fuck it! Fuck it! I’ve forgotten the fucking song! I’ve forgotten the fucking tune! Look what you’ve done. I can’t remember it. It’s gone.

  SHAKSPAR (singing).

  Come on, baby, come on, baby, don’t say maybe,

  When you’re way down, let me lay down –

  BARRY. That’s my song!

  SHAKSPAR (singing).

  Lay down with you in the summer grass,

  In the long green summer grass.

  BARRY. That’s the song I just made up!

  SHAKSPAR (singing).

  I’m changing my drains down,

  So, baby, when it rains down,

  Ain’t no summer hose ban’s gonna turn,

  Gonna burn, my long green summer grass to brown.

  I thought the repeats helped the rhythm.

  BARRY. Who is this guy, Frank?

  FRANK. Why don’t you both just stop pretending. Get out. Go on, get out, the both of you.

  BARRY. I never met the man before in my life! I swear on Brian May’s plectrum!

  Scene Five

  The Firs
t Interview Ever with William Shakespeare

  SHAKSPAR. May I just finish this before I go?

  BARRY. Do you know any more of my songs?

  SHAKSPAR. Yes, but what I like best is that children’s book you’re working on.

  FRANK. You never told me you were working on a children’s book.

  BARRY. I never told anyone about Teddy and the Philosopher’s Guitar. What are you, like, a professional mind-reader? Is that your act?

  SHAKSPAR. In a way, I suppose I always was, but since I died…

  FRANK. Listen, you Shakespeare Kissogram, lookalike fake, bald-headed bladder-faced Midlands Pranny…

  BARRY. Hey, Frank, why don’t you give him a chance to explain himself.

  SHAKSPAR. Because his mind is closed, Barry. He doesn’t want to know who wrote the plays. He wants to know he’s right. And I think he’s probably got some kind of hang-up about common people creating great works of art.

  SHAKSPAR gets up to go.

  BARRY. Now you’re talking.

  FRANK. No I haven’t.

  SHAKSPAR. I’m off now. (Speaking into the camera. ) May I just say thank you to everyone, actors and audiences everywhere, for making my plays the big success they are. I never imagined they would last so long.

  FRANK (also into the camera). Because he never imagined them in the first place.

  SHAKSPAR. I think I might go up to Stratford-upon-Avon and visit the Birthplace Trust. What’s the best way to get there?

  BARRY. How did you get here?

  SHAKSPAR. I don’t know… something to do with the internet and the weather? Look, I’ve written something for you, Frank. Just to show you there’s no hard feelings. One of your favourite sonnets. You wouldn’t believe the money you can get for any old document connected to me nowadays.

  SHAKSPAR puts it on the desk.

  FRANK. Oh, very impressive. Phoney Elizabethan writing. You’ve been up all night rehearsing this.

  SHAKSPAR. Don’t you want a handwritten sonnet?

  FRANK. No, I don’t want your lousy homework.

  FRANK tears it up and throws it in his face. Sniffs him.

  By the way, I don’t know if your friends have told you, but you have got severe hygiene issues.

  SHAKSPAR. I’ll make my own way. Fare thee well, Barry.