ELYSIUM

There they are, all three of them, on the stage as the lights go up. Stage left, Shakespeare, with a quill, is writing and gesticulating. In the middle, Jane Austen is embroidering and thinking and smiling to herself. Stage right, Homer, his eyes closed and draped in a sheet, is standing motionless, his head raised.

HOMER (takes off his dark glasses, and looks around) Have we started? Oh yes. Sorry - I'm supposed to be blind, you know. I'm also supposed to be seventy years old - but being in Elysium does have some benefits - though I'm not sure my colleagues have taken full advantage of them. (He puts his shades on again.) Now when the young dawn showed again with her rosy fingers -

SHAKES Oh no, he's not going to start composing out loud again, is he? How am I supposed to think?

JANE It's not really his fault, Mr Shakespeare. He is blind, you know.

SHAKES Blind? Blind drunk, more like. All they ever do in his poems is drink and kill one another.

HOMER Then in truth they assembled all the round-bellied wine-jars -

SHAKES See what I mean?

JANE Well, Mr Shakespeare, I don't think you can claim that your own works are entirely free from the mention of strong drink.

SHAKES Fine, fine - but motivated. You know? Part of the plot. Not just indulged in.

HOMER Loud was the voice in complaint of the man with the bandaged neck.

SHAKES It is not a bandage. It is a ruff. It is part of the fashion. It is the costume that I have to wear. Like that ludicrous bed-sheet you have draped round you.

HOMER Loud again was the voice of the man with the pain in his neck.

SHAKES I do not have a pain in the neck.

HOMER Three times now he denied that he was a pain in the neck, although everyone knew it.

JANE Now, now, Mr Homer - I think that last remark of yours was a little naughty.

HOMER I beg your pardon, ma'am, I'm sure, but -

JANE No buts, now, Mr Homer.

HOMER Very well, ma'am.

JANE We both know how unjust Mr Shakespeare's accusations are against a writer the study of whom has always been accounted one of the foundations of a good education, conducing equally towards an understanding of the virtues of the ancients and an appreciation of the advantages of our modern times.

SHAKES Modern times? What does she know about modern times? (He makes a vulgar gesture signifying sexual intercourse.) That's what modern times are all about.

JANE Mr Shakespeare, I really see no reason why I should respond to a remark which has been addressed, as far as I can gather, to the empty air. I see even less reason why I should respond to a remark, to whomever it may be addressed, that is couched in such a derogatory and unseemly fashion. Perhaps you will oblige me by confining your remarks to yourself in future.

SHAKES No problemo, baby. That's what I'm good at, soliloquies. Talk to myself all the time. Surprised they didn't put me in the loony-bin for it. Two doctors and one social-worker, that's all it takes - maybe they were waiting to invent the social-worker. Who did invent social-workers? The Two Social-Workers of Verona. The Social-Worker of Venice. The Comedy of Social-Workers. As the Social-Worker Likes It.

HOMER Then the pain in the neck, raging and vexing its owner -

SHAKES I am not, nor have I ever been, a pain in the neck. Nor do I have a pain the neck. How do you feel today, Fido? Ruff!! that's what it is - a ruff! You have to take it with the smooth.

JANE I don't know about you, Mr Homer, but I entertain a very lively suspicion that Mr Shakespeare has spent more time than is good for him listening to Vintage Comedy on Radio Two.

HOMER Old are the jokes and they limp and they hobble most painfully. To judge by their age, ma'am, he may have been responsible for inventing them.

JANE Oh, I hardly think so - my understanding of Mr Shakespeare, insofar as the nature of his subject matter permitted me to read him, is that he invented next to nothing, apart from a few striking, if obscure, turns of phrase. Hoist with his own petard comes to mind. I have always assumed that a petard was one of those complicated Elizabethan forms of trouser, cut in this case a little too high in the - ah! - (she is clearly avoiding the word CRUTCH) area between the legs, and thus - I surmise - causing not a little discomfort to the male wearer of the same. My familiarity with these matters stems, as I am sure you will gather, from my domestic activities as maker and mender of various young nephews' small-clothes, and not from any close or intimate acquaintance with adult males, not excepting members of my immediate family.

HOMER A style as delicate and wholesome as your own ma'am, can only proceed from an experience that is equally as wholesome and delicate.

JANE Why, Mr Homer! Without wishing to reflect adversely on your distinguished reputation, I had not apprehended that your own otherwise rather rugged style would be able to turn quite so pretty a compliment.

SHAKES My God, he's chatting her up and she's falling for it! He's a greasy Greek! He puts olive oil on his hair instead of Brylcreem! Who do you think you are, woman? Shirley Valentine? Now there was a soliloquy! Is this a microwave I see before me? Classic stuff!

HOMER It would give me great pleasure to show you the Greek islands, ma'am. Are you familiar with the wine-dark sea?

JANE Wine, Mr Homer, I can assure you that I am familiar with. In my role as chaperone, I was often encouraged by the couple I was chaperoning to consume large quantities of it in the belief that it would diminish my powers of observation, which was never the case. As to the sea - well, I have more than once made a day's excursion to the small Dorset resort of Lyme Regis, where the "wild and wasteful ocean" -

SHAKES That's copyright, you know!

JANE - beats with an unexpected ferocity against a not insignificant stone jetty known as the Cobb, from which a secondary heroine of mine cast herself down.

HOMER Ah, like Sappho - "Gods, receive me unworthy/ returning into your bosom,/ too wounded by life!" Whee-Splat! (Homer makes the gesture with the flat of his hand.)

SHAKES Oh, the poetry of it. Did you notice the onomatopoeia? Whee-Splat! Conjures it all up, doesn't it? Greek word, onomatopoeia. So's hypocrisy, incidentally, Mr Homer!

JANE Well, no, that wasn't exactly what happened. She - um - er -

HOMER Fell?

JANE Oh no. My works have very little to do with fallen women. She - er - thought she would be caught, but she wasn't.

SHAKES She jumped down in order to get picked up. (Big wink at audience.)

JANE I may choose not to listen to you, Mr Shakespeare, but I can, unfortunately, hear exactly what you're saying, and I am not unaware of the implications of the vernacular term you are using.

SHAKES Right on, lady. Tell me I've got it wrong.

JANE Mr Homer, if we compare for a moment the art of literary production to that of painting, then I render the activity of the human soul with, as it were, the strokes of a single hair on a half-inch piece of ivory, whereas Mr Shakespeare works with a thicker brush on a broader canvas.

HOMER I think you flatter him too much, ma'am - he sounds much more like Rolf Harris to me - or maybe even Jackson Pollock -

SHAKES Pollock yourself!

HOMER The Brut 33 technique - splash it on all over.

SHAKES I don't know how you expect to get away with all these anachronisms. You barely know what a wheel is.

HOMER Anachronism. Greek word.

SHAKES You can't read. You have to shout out your lines all the time because you can't write them down.

HOMER At least I know how my name's spelt. I don't have seven entirely different signatures.

SHAKES You've been watching the Open University programmes! That's how you do it!

HOMER And what was it they called you when they paid you for King Lear?

SHAKES That's not fair! That's privileged information!

HOMER What was it they called you when they paid you for providing that entertaining Christmas play for King Jamie? Jolly little pantomime, wasn't it? People jumping off cliffs seems to run in English literature. What was it they called you?

SHAKES Janie, Janie! Don't listen!

JANE I wouldn't dream of listening, Mr Shakespeare. But I can't help hearing. It wouldn't really be ladylike to stuff my fingers in my ears now, would it? What did they call him?

HOMER Shaxberd. With an X.

SHAKES You shouldn't watch television. It'll make you go blind.

HOMER I am blind. Remember?

SHAKES Then how do you watch television? Aha! Besides, it isn't a Greek word.

HOMER Part of it is.

SHAKES Oh yes, part of it. Big deal.

HOMER And I always think of it as the telly.

SHAKES Oh, very proletarian. Very much of the demos.

HOMER You can talk. All you ever write about are these aristocrats playing musical thrones. Oh yes, my dear, the fact that you know which finger to pick your nose with and understand the language of flowers convinces me that you must be the child of a king and a queen. A bloodstock programme for European royalty, that's all your plays are.

SHAKES And the Roman ones?

HOMER Pull the other one! Coriolanus, the friend of the masses? I appeal to Miss Austen here -

SHAKES That's what you'd like to believe.

HOMER To be the judge between us.

SHAKES You're joking! She's entirely trapped by middle-class hegemonic value-systems based on the status conferred by marriage, and so politically ignorant that she thinks bourgeois is a breed of dog.

HOMER I always thought her works gave an unrivalled insight into the deepest personal preoccupations of an entire era of English history.

SHAKES You believe what they tell you on the Open University Programmes, don't you?

HOMER Yes.

SHAKES Don't actually read the books, though, do you?

HOMER Does anybody? Why do you need to, if you know what they're about? Unrivalled grasp of feminine psychology. Precision of delineation. Fully-rounded characters. Delicate irony.

SHAKES No fighting, though.

HOMER No-o. But you wouldn't expect it, would you?

SHAKES Not even in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars?

HOMER What?

SHAKES Napoleonic Wars. Going on all the time she was writing. One mention, that's all. One mention. Whereas you and I -

HOMER Well, you've got to, haven't you?

SHAKES Absolutely.

HOMER No choice, is there?

SHAKES None at all.

HOMER Give the punters -

SHAKES What they want -

SHAKES}

HOMER} DEATH!!! (they slap palm to palm, as cricketers do.) Excellent!

SHAKES Single combat!

HOMER Duels!

SHAKES Murders!

HOMER Night reconnaissance!

SHAKES Knife in the back!

HOMER Poison!

SHAKES Man to man!

HOMER Face to face!

SHAKES Sword to sword!

They begin doing the usual sword-fight,

possibly with the quill. Jane steps forward.

JANE I must confess that I am uncertain whether you, the audience, have developed the ability not to listen to the same degree that I have. (She is having to raise her voice to shout over the two men.) However, HOWEVER - Look, will you two just shut up and stop behaving like silly little school-boys?

HOMER]

SHAKES} OOooooh! (They both blow raspberries, and carry on fighting.)

JANE Blanket-stitch. This stitch is particularly useful when you're stitching blankets.

Shakes snatches the embroidery-frame from her hand, and

throws it to Homer, who uses it as a shield against

Shakes's quill-pen, as they cavort about the stage,

shouting the usual 'have at thee!' and 'Take that!',

leading eventually to 'Zap', 'Poweee!' and 'Ker-blam!'

JANE Come back, Mr Darcy, all is forgiven!

Shakes and Homer stand panting with exertion and shake hands.

SHAKES So tell me - do you find any really good unusual ways to kill people?

HOMER What you do mean: unusual? Kinky?

SHAKES No. Well - not necessarily. I mean - (he whispers in his ear)

HOMER A red-hot poker?

JANE (stepping forward to the audience) The common English name for a particularly striking flower called Kniphofia -

HOMER}

SHAKES} A flower - ! (They snigger loudly.)

JANE I should probably take lessons in not hearing, as well as not listening. Unfortunately, the real experts in not hearing are all men.

HOMER What else unusual?

SHAKES Drowned in a barrel of wine?

HOMER Not bad - but a bit of waste. Now, you see, in my line of killing, you go for the anatomical.

SHAKES Anatomical?

HOMER Yes. Greek word. Think about bones. Think about vital organs. Obscure ones. Not only is the technical term Greek, but - and this is very important for my kind of work - it's got a lot of syllabubbles. You have to fill up the line, see?

SHAKES Stabbed in the back no good?

HOMER No - far too simple. You want something like ...ooh...the blade, manufactured from the finest steel on the island of Whatsisname and carried in a sheath of leather made from the hides of the goats that roam on the hillsides of Thingummy...

SHAKES You ever thought about getting yourself sponsored?

HOMER Is that something they do with the red-hot poker?

SHAKES We'll talk about it later. I'll only take ten per cent.

HOMER Where was I? The blade...heated by charcoal made from trees that waved in the tender winds of Wheresit, and tempered in the snowy waters that flow down from the rime-covered head of How'syourfather, um, slipped in nicely just underneath the intercostal clavicle, took its sharp course through auricle and ventricle, and let the pulsing crimson life slip out between the axil and the occipital vertebrae.

SHAKES Doesn't that mean the sword had to do a right-angled turn?

HOMER Probably - but I'm not writing for doctors, am I? Well, certainly not for surgeons. I go for the rhythm and let the sense of the lyrics look after itself.

SHAKES What's your average mortality rate?

HOMER Quite high. Quite high. I mean - I have been criticised for killing the same person more than once.

SHAKES Really?! Isn't that called recycling nowadays?

HOMER What can you expect? No one on continuity! No word-processing facilities. I'd have picked it up immediately with spell-check.

SHAKES Of course. The same thing's true with my signatures.

HOMER Absolutely. I've got a floppy somewhere in here -

SHAKES Let's have a look at your floppy -

They wander towards the back of the stage, discussing.

JANE Men. Men! Blood and guts and technicalities. I don't know why we bother with them. Anything that interests them has to be dirty, noisy and kill people. And if it needs a couple of days to take apart and put together again, so much the better.

SHAKES Bows? Bows? No, I never used bows - too easy for a string to break - and goodness knows where the arrow could finish up. Daggers. Daggers are the thing. And they don't even have to be visible. Swords are a bit less reliable - too long - you ever had some cretin back into you when he was wearing a sword? Right in the petard, believe you me -

JANE Mr Knightley, now - Mr Knightley was different. Even Mr Darcy was only really interested in dogs. And Elizabeth Bennett, of course. Not just dogs.

SHAKES (he is trying out some kind of complicated stabbing manoeuvre when his back goes) Aargh! Oooh! Nasty that! Do you think it's my Costa Brava popsicle, or whatever?

HOMER Intercostal clavicle.

SHAKES Whatever. Do you?

HOMER No idea.

SHAKES Osteopath? Greek word. Hippocratic oath.

HOMER Hippo-crAtic?

SHAKES Yes, well, I didn't mean that bit about you're being hypocritical before, but, you know, Hippocrates, doctor, Greek - you know...

HOMER Look, I wrote the Iliad, not Mash - they didn't have a military hospital outside the walls of Troy. I just kill 'em - somebody else has to put 'em together again.

SHAKES Insert blade A into slot B and life C flows out through hole D.

HOMER More or less. With a few more syllabubbles.

SHAKES Do you use (he looks around cautiously) ghosts?

HOMER Sometimes. As circumstances require it, or else as occasion demands.

SHAKES What kind of ghosts? Headless ones? Legless ones? Do you just get out the old white sheet - ah, yes (he realises he has said something tactless; he runs his hand over Homer's white sheet) - pretty hard to tell that they're dead, if everybody's wearing a white sheet. Incidentally - why do you all wear sheets? Shortage of buttons? Shortage of women able to do button-hole stitch?

JANE Speaking of ghosts -

SHAKES Were we? I wasn't aware -

JANE Speaking of ghosts, I wrote a ghost story once.

HOMER How very interesting ma'am.

SHAKES (sotto voce) Creep.

HOMER And where was it set?

JANE Northanger Abbey.

HOMER Aha. Monks and nuns.

SHAKES (sotto voce) What fun does a monk have? Nun! (Nobody laughs.) Good old Radio Two!

JANE No,no. It had become a private house.

HOMER I find that hard to understand, ma'am. I am but imperfectly conversant with your customs and terminology -

SHAKES Double creep.

HOMER But I had always assumed that an abbey was a place of worship -

JANE Perhaps you should read my History of England -

SHAKES Come on - you can't put in a plug for your juvenilia! You'll be advertising Love and Freindship next!

HOMER Love and Freindship?

SHAKES That's right. She can't spell either.

JANE I was only fifteen.

HOMER But what's all this about abbeys?

SHAKES Didn't you watch the Open University programme on the Reformation?

HOMER No, it was too early in the morning.

SHAKES Haven't you got a video?

HOMER No - it's a Latin word, isn't it?

SHAKES Right - well, Henry VIII, that I wrote the play about, cast of thousands, wide-screen just to get his stomach on - Henry, see, he -er- sort of privatised the abbeys.

HOMER Privatised? What's that?

SHAKES He - er - sold them cheap to his friends, while taking a rake-off for himself.

JANE I really don't think Mr Homer wishes to be bored with English history, certainly not in your somewhat distorted version.

SHAKES My version's distorted? Wow-ee! Privatisation is an attempt by the middle classes to screw the aristocracy and the people simultaneously.

JANE Mr Shakespeare! I'm sure Mr Homer has no idea what you're talking about.

SHAKES You nust be right - the middle classes were invented well after his time! It 's called "progress". Believe in progress, do you, Homer, old son? Well -

JANE The story so far: Catherine Morland, after some blameless adventures of the heart in Bath, -

SHAKES Adventures in her bath!

JANE accepts an invitation to Northanger Abbey, home of the Tilney family. Having read many novels that deal with such subjects, Catherine is very suggestible -

SHAKES Suggestible!

JANE - in the matter of hidden manuscripts, concealed passages -

SHAKES Concealed passages!

JANE - and hauntings - all the more so, when the power of such appropriate surroundings is augmented by the violence of the weather. Stimulated -

SHAKES Stimulated!

JANE - by her imagination and by the wild ragings of the wind about her chamber, she unlocks an ebony cabinet, and finds in it at length a fascinating and ancient manuscript, which she is prevented from reading by the unluckiest gust of wind (SHAKES and HOMER make vulgar noises and gestures, to suggest what kind of wind is meant) that with fateful force extinguishes her candle and obliges her to lay herself down to sleep with her curiosity completely unsatisfied.

SHAKES What was she?

HOMER Completely unsatisfied.

JANE Her curiosity, that is.

SHAKES Oh, yeah - her curiosity.

JANE Her candle was blown out, so she had to go to sleep.

SHAKES And?

JANE And what?

HOMER What happened next?

JANE To what?

HOMER To the papers she had found!

JANE Oh - she read them.

SHAKES And?

JANE They proved to be -

HOMER What?

JANE A laundry list! (she laughs) Imagine that! A laundry list!

Shakes and Homer look at each other with weak smiles.

HOMER (sotto voce to Shakes) Is there some coded significance about a laundry list? I mean, I've read Freud, and there's all this stuff about stains on the sheets - but laundry lists?

SHAKES You've read Freud? And what do you think of him?

HOMER I particularly like his fish recipes.

SHAKES That's Clement.

JANE A laundry list! And a vet's bill!! (she is still laughing heartily, so that the tears come to her eyes.)

HOMER (looks at her) Are you a doctor?

SHAKES No.

HOMER Are you a social worker?

SHAKES Would you like to come outside and say that?

HOMER (makes a gesture towards Jane, who is still laughing) I just meant...

SHAKES Oh. Right. I'm sure she'll get over it. Giggling's just a sex substitute.

HOMER Not in Greece it isn't.

SHAKES Oh.

HOMER We don't have substitutes.

SHAKES Oh! So how do you get on here in Elysium?

HOMER What do you mean?

SHAKES You know!

HOMER No, I don't.

SHAKES Oh, come on - you must!

JANE Mr Shakespeare - it is a truth universally acknowledged that there are passages in your works which should not be in your works, if anyone with a normally sensitive moral outlook is to read them. While I could never admit to understanding what you mean, I can admit to understanding what it is that I am not supposed to understand.

SHAKES Come again, lady?

JANE Perhaps I should rephrase my statement. Just as I refuse to listen, but cannot help hearing, so I know what it is that I could never admit knowing about. Mr Homer's work is incomparably more moral than your own because it includes the character of Penelope, who waits faithfully for twenty years for her absent husband.

SHAKES But you're not supposed to know what it is that she's not doing.

JANE No.

SHAKES But you do.

JANE No.

SHAKES Wait a minute - let's get this straight -

JANE I know that she's not supposed to be doing it. And I know that she isn't doing it.

SHAKES But how can you know that she isn't doing it, if you don't actually know what it is?

HOMER I think he may have you there, ma'am.

JANE I don't intend to let Mr Shakespeare have me anywhere, thank you, Mr Homer. Now, Mr Shakespeare - reflect for a moment. Is it not true that Mr Homer tells us exactly what his characters are doing?

SHAKES Well - well - I don't know. Why don't you ask him?

JANE Mr Shakespeare! Surely you don't think I was born yesterday? Asking an author about his own work is like believing an income tax return.

HOMER (sotto voce to Shakespeare) I think she's been watching the Open University.

JANE Don't whisper, Mr Homer. It's not polite. And how often do you change your sheets?

HOMER I'm - er - I'm - er -

JANE Well, you see, Penelope is a good housewife and a very clean worman, and she is clearly so busy in running the household that she couldn't possibly be doing anything except what we're told about, which is principally embroidery - sewing - blanket stitch -

SHAKES Who ripped the blanket in the first place?

JANE It's no good, Mr Shakespeare, all your suggestiveness won't make the slightest impression on me, because I know that women always have to wait for the right man. And I also know what a dangerous thing a play can be.

SHAKES Oh, come on! What's wrong with a bit of how'syour father?

HOMER Take it easy, Will - don't forget that Oedipus Rex is a nasty case of who'syourfather!

SHAKES Yes, but - does this Penelope really go without it for twenty years?

HOMER (after some hesitation) Yes.

SHAKES I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it.

JANE I'm afraid you'll have to believe it, Mr Shakespeare.

SHAKES You're not even supposed to know what it is she's going without.

JANE But I do know that she is remaining faithful to her husband, who is clearly the right man for her.

SHAKES OK - but what's her husband up to?

HOMER Drop it, Will.

SHAKES No. What's he up to, on his way home? Just got talking to some of the lads - you know the way these things happen - is that how late it is? Half-past ten years already! My, how time flies! - It was one of those gaps in the evening timetable, love - you know how it is on the Northern Line -

HOMER Will - leave it -

SHAKES Only it wasn't the Northern Line, was it? Because the Northern Line starts at High Barnet, whereas Penny's husband was going round the Greek islands: Athos, Porthos and Aramis. He went from Charybdis to Scylla -

HOMER Come on, Will - he wasn't on Blind Date!

SHAKES So you do watch things besides the Open University!

HOMER Well - Elysium isn't always the most interesting place -

JANE And television is certainly a more innocent diversion than any that you have been proposing, Mr Shakespeare. As are Mr Homer's works.

SHAKES Innocent? Do you know what the Greek islands are like?

HOMER Only in season, Will, only in season.

SHAKES In heat and out of heat.

JANE Are you alluding to the mixed bathing, Mr Shakespeare?

SHAKES I'm alluding to the kind of sexual practices that you need Greek words to describe.

HOMER Such as?

SHAKES Soutsoukakia. Klephtikos. Baklavas.

JANE Balaclavas?

SHAKES Does she have to reduce everything to knitting?

HOMER She may be right, though, Will - the need to disguise the participants -

SHAKES I think you may be trying to make fun of me.

JANE What was it they said about you, Mr Shakespeare? Little Latin -

HOMER And less Greek.

SHAKES You just think I'm obsessed with what it is that she's not supposed to know anything about except that she's not supposed to know anything about it.

JANE Yes.

HOMER Aren't you?

JANE I mean, you're always going on about the need for marriage before bed, as if it was some kind of milky drink.

HOMER And the way you talk about the -

SHAKES What?

HOMER The - um -

JANE The bits down there.