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.

SHAKES Where?

HOMER Under the - er -

JANE - petard. That's the word he uses. Hoist with his own petard.

SHAKES There's nothing wrong with my petard, and you can't tell whether I'm hoist under it or not. It's certainly better than wearing a sheet, as if you hadn't got a decent holdall to take your bed-linen down to the laundrette. Or maybe you have taken all your clothes to the laundrette and they're on the filthy dirty handwoven fibres programme, going round and round like Ulysses' boat in the middle of Charybdis, and the sheet's all you've got left to cover your embarrassment.

HOMER Greeks are not embarrassed. Greeks are never embarrassed. They wrestle naked to show that fine bodies and fine minds go together.

JANE Mr Homer, I may choose not to look, but I shall certainly be able to see -

SHAKES Go on, show us - go on, show us! What's he got under his shee-eet, what's he got under his shee-eet!

JANE Mr Shakespeare - I really can't -

SHAKES Of course you can! Everybody can! Everybody should! Eeerggh! Nasty! Dirty! Smelly! Off with his sheet! Off with his sheet! Off with his sheet!

He pulls off Homer's sheet. Jane screams and hides her eyes.

Then she slowly uncovers them and has a peep.

Then she does a double-take. Homer is dressed in quite a

loud beach-shirt and a pair of shorts.

HOMER When in Rome -

SHAKES You're not in Rome. You're in Elysium, with her and me. If feminism had had more of an influence on the literary canon, there might have been more crumpet around, I grant you -

JANE There are the Brontë sisters.

SHAKES They all talk Yorkshire.

JANE I don't see why that would worry someone whose native accent is only half a sound-shift away fro Brummie -

HOMER This is my disguise, for when I go back home.

JANE The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece - as Lord Byron said.

SHAKES Had a stutter, did he, as well as a club-foot?

JANE Look, Mr Shakespeare, or Mr Shakespetard, or whatever you choose to call yourself, as the mood takes you today - Lord Byron is mad, bad, and dangerous to know, and in fact I don't know him, but at least I know about him, which isn't bad for the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, and I'm not the prissy old spinster you take me for, either. If Mr Homer chooses to dress this way, he will have his reason - won't you, Mr Homer?

SHAKES I think it's more likely he's lost his reason.

HOMER This objective epic impartiality gets on your pip after a while - I wanted to identify with my characters a bit - like Ulysses, coming home to Penelope after all those years - so - I went back to Ithaca

JANE And?

HOMER Well -

SHAKES And?

HOMER She'd turned the palace into a time-share.

JANE No!

HOMER Afraid so. They weren't suitors staying there. They were part owners. Only a week at a time, mind you. But it soon adds up.

SHAKES So you -

HOMER Decided to become inconspicuous.

Jane and Shakes try to suppress their laughter.

HOMER It is inconspicuous there. Anyway, I think it's quite a fetching pattern

SHAKES Depends what you want to fetch.

JANE But Mr Homer - what's become of all the former inhabitants of the island?

HOMER Waiters, ma'am, hirers of mopeds, sellers of ice-cream, made from the milk from the cows that ate of the grass watered by the rains that fell on the slopes of Whatyoum'callit, and -

SHAKES Come on, this isn't the House that Zorba Built -

JANE Don't just tell us about the people, Mr Homer. What's happened to the Gods?

SHAKES And the nymphs. Especially the nymphettes.

HOMER The Gods? Well - I don't know. I mean, occasionally I see these pop-videos, in bars that have satellite telly -

JANE No, no - people in pop-videos are human.

HOMER She's joking - she has to be joking! There's that video where Michael Jackson -

SHAKES Don't worry - she is joking - but what about the gods?

HOMER Well - I was going to ask you that - when these abbeys were privatised - where did the Gods and Goddesses go to?

SHAKES I beg your pardon?

HOMER Look - you get your abbey or temple or church or whatever it is, and you strip out the old religious stuff, it's worm-eaten and it smells of incense and all the wrong kind of associations, you fill up a few skips with it and get it taken away, and then you slap whitewash over the frescoes and get in someone to do some really tasteful artex on the ceilings, and you've got a first-rate modern dwelling unit - so you don't want any divinities hanging round, causing trouble with the plumbing, do you? So where do they go?

JANE I think you are under a misapprehension, Mr Homer. Abbeys and such-like places were never the residences of divinities.

HOMER Of course not - they've each got their own ranches, like Michael Jackson - but when they're in town - I mean, they're hardly going to put up at the YMCA, are they? I mean, how can they throw a decent party?

JANE Mr Homer - in our Christian civilisation, there is only one God.

HOMER How on earth do you survive? If there weren't lots of Gods fighting each other, they'd have time to concentrate on us human beings and make our lives really miserable - I mean, the only way we get through at all is by playing them off against one another - but if there's only one...

JANE Furthermore, he is invisible.

HOMER Now that really isn't fair! Occasionally, all right, and being disguised as the randier kinds of animal, well, you accept that, provided it isn't actually you or one of your immediate relatives he's after, love and let love, as I always say - but -

JANE He is also incorporeal.

HOMER What? No body? How does he have any fun, then? Gods are always extra crabby when they're not having fun.

SHAKES Have you ever actually seen any of your Gods?

HOMER Well - not exactly - I mean, not face to face - but then it's dangerous, I mean, if they appear in full glory, then a pair of Ray-Bans and a tub of factor 20 are not going to save you from acquiring that flame-grilled taste -

SHAKES But you have tried - I mean, you have had a look?

HOMER Well, I had a swim out to where they always said Poseidon held court.

SHAKES And?

HOMER The new holiday village has quite a long sewage outfall. His conch would get clogged, and his trident tarnished. You can't blame him, if he doesn't want to swim around in a load of Germanic whatsisname, even if it is produced exclusively by bowels aged between eighteen and thirty.

JANE Mr Shakespeare, do you have to lead Mr Homer to dwell on these matters?

SHAKES Just my tireless religious questionings.

JANE Are you not content with the Church of England?

SHAKES Well -

JANE I am of the opinion that it unites devotion and reason, mitigating the excesses of the one and the possible austerity of the other. Adherents of Catholicism, for whatever reason, tend, in my experience, to allow their responses to exceed in intensity what would be appropriate to the stimulus.

SHAKES You mean they let themselves get carried away.

JANE Yes.

SHAKES But isn't that more fun?

JANE Fun?

SHAKES Come on, Janie - isn't "fun" what all your heroines really want?

JANE Mr Shakespeare -

SHAKES Go on - call me Will. Where there's a will, there's a way.

HOMER Do you mind if I take notes on your technique?

JANE Mr Shakespeare - my girls all know exactly what they're doing, and have no need to indulge in the kind of smutty symbolism that you spend most of your time promoting.

SHAKES If what you say is really true, then what have we three got in common? I'm addressing all the great questions of life, he's doing a homo-erotic version of War Picture Library, with a Good Housekeeping Guide to the domestic habits of Ancient Greece thrown in, and you're into up-market Mills and Boon.

JANE I beg your pardon?

SHAKES So you should! I mean, I share an A-level syllabus with you. And you're the one they can understand.

JANE Because I deal with eternal human preoccupations.

SHAKES Come on, Janie! You deal with how to get a husband!

JANE Isn't that important?

HOMER Think carefully before you answer, Will. What about the marriages in your plays?

SHAKES I beg your pardon? Are you giving me heterosexual monogamy? Odysseus on that island for all those years with Calypso! And Circe turning men into swine!

JANE I understand they didn't take much turning.

HOMER Achilles and Patroclus were just very good friends.

JANE Your problem, Mr Shakespeare, is that you're so busy making your texts creatively ambiguous, you're never sure what it is you do mean.

HOMER You're just a simple lad from the West Midlands, at heart.

JANE Who went to London to get rich, then came home to settle down.

SHAKES Are you sure about that?

JANE Of course, of course!

HOMER What you need, lad, is to be re-integrated into your origins. After all, your works are not the only great literature to come from that part of England.

SHAKES No? Who else? Why aren't they here with us in Elysium?

JANE Perhaps they're not dead yet.

HOMER Perhaps it's not just one single author, but a whole team, a whole concept, a whole myth.

JANE (in a kind of incantatory chant) Ambridge, Ambridge, Ambridge, Ambridge...

SHAKES Ambridge, Ambridge, Ambridge...

JANE An everyday story...

HOMER ...of country folk.

SHAKES (under the spell) Country folk...

JANE Oh, Dan, I'm worried about the way Mr Lear's being treated by his daughters. I think they're going to put him into a home, and just have a good time with his money.

HOMER I'm sure the youngest one will look after him, she was always good-hearted, and helped out at the village fete until she went off with that Frenchman.

JANE Young women nowadays! They always seem to be dressing up in trousers and going round pretending to be young men!

HOMER That's not the worst. Have you heard about what happened to the amateur dramatic group when they rehearsed in the woods? (Homer whispers in her ear)

JANE Turned into a donkey? How did they know it was him? (Homer whsipers again) They recognised his what? (Homer whispers again) This isn't turning out the way I expected it would - all his plots seem to be taking over -

SHAKES It's all right, Romeo, I don't mind your being a Villa supporter...

HOMER You're right - we'll be on to the black man, his wife and the box of Kleenex before long -

JANE You make it sound like a Peter Greenaway film!

HOMER It's not that bad, is it?

JANE What can we do?

HOMER Desperate remedies. You must impersonate Queen Elizabeth.

JANE My husband and I...

HOMER Queen Elizabeth THE FIRST! (He slips the ruff off Shakespeare's neck and puts it round Jane's)

JANE But what do I say?

HOMER I don't know. What does one say to authors?

JANE I want it good and I want it Wednesday?

HOMER I have so little experience of these things - I mean, there are some people who actually say I'm a fiction!

JANE Oh - Mr Homer - how terrible! You certainly seem solid enough to me.

HOMER Thank you, ma'am. But - you know how these things are - they were all very happy to have a real author in the old days - a real author with a real biography, born, died, did this and that in between -

JANE Yes, indeed, I was born and I did die - and I even did one or two things in between - visited the poor, consoled people with broken hearts, you know -

HOMER Yes, well, I didn't exactly, because nobody was writing anything down about what I might have done, because nobody was really writing anything very much down at all, apart from a few lists scribbled on the back of a piece of broken pot -

JANE Broken pot, Mr Homer?

HOMER Yes - the Greeks are like that, you know - when they get happy, they smash things.

JANE Oh. I had no idea.

HOMER Very happy lot, the Ancient Greeks, if you go by the archaeological evidence. Anyway, modern critics don't seem to want authors any more.

JANE I beg your pardon?

HOMER They don't want authors, ma'am. They call it The Death of the Author. They're very happy to have the books. They can pull them apart and put them together again in any way that pleases them, but authors - well, we just seem to be inconvenient.

JANE But I was born. I died. I am buried in Winchester Cathedral. Every few seconds during the day, somebody walks over my grave. I'm constantly shuddering.

HOMER They say I'm buried on Ios.

JANE They say? Don't you know?

HOMER No, ma'am.

JANE Oh dear.

HOMER At least seven islands claim I was born on them.

JANE Seven?

HOMER And Ios isn't too good a place to be buried. It's all bars and drunken Americans.

JANE I'm sorry to hear that.

HOMER I've got used to it. I told Will about it once, and he said it might have been worse - I might have been buried in Leamington Spa.

JANE Was that a helpful remark?

HOMER I don't really know. But then I don't know very much, apart from what I get out of the Open University broadcasts. That's where I heard about the Death of the Author.

JANE But Mr Homer - you and I are dead already.

HOMER As people, ma'am - but not as authors. While our books are read, we are still alive, as the people who wrote those books.

JANE I see.

HOMER But - we change, according to the people who are reading us.

JANE Oh dear. Do you mean that I am living in somebody's mind - the mind of somebody to whom I have not been formally introduced? Of whom I might not even approve?

HOMER Yes. That's right. and when Will goes - you know - funny - then it's because somebody has produced a new interpretation of him.

JANE Very susceptible to new interpretations, Mr Shakespeare.

HOMER Absolutely! There's not much they can do to you and me with their methods of analysis, but poor old Will - !

JANE You seem to have a lot of sympathy for him. Does he entirely deserve it? Hasn't he got himself into this situation, by wishing to be all things to all people? After all, he was an actor himself, and they expose themselves to interpretation. In fact, I understand they only really exist if someone is looking at them. I do not approve of acting, you know.

HOMER No. No. Quite so. But -

JANE But what, Mr Homer?

HOMER Have you noticed, ma'am, how empty Elysium has been getting lately?

JANE Perhaps there are simply fewer authors worthy of being here.

HOMER Maybe, ma'am - as the oldest resident, I really wouldn't want to speculate on that - but - ones who used to be here seem to have disappeared.

JANE Disappeared, Mr Homer? I have by no means cut myself off completely from the trends in modern society and modern writing, and have, in my time, whiled away an hour or two with Miss Christie's works, but your tone is disturbingly reminiscent of the shilling shockers. Disappeared? Are you implying murdered, and saying that Samuel Butler did it?

HOMER No, ma'am - it's the Death of the Author. Nobody reads the books - or if they do read them, they don't think about who wrote them. And if you're not being thought about, then you don't exist.

JANE Not existing seems to me to be distinctly preferable to being thought about by certain kinds of person.

SHAKES Something is rotten in the state of Ambridge.

JANE And there's one of them!

SHAKES That was a strange dream! What are you talking about?

HOMER The Nature of Existence.

SHAKES Omigod! then I'll get back to what Doll Tearsheet was saying behind the pumps at The Bull.

JANE Mr Shakespeare - must you always deal with the seamier side of life?

SHAKES Which seam, lady? And which kind of garment? Now, your French seam...

HOMER Will - why did you say: Omigod when I said we were talking about the nature of existence?

SHAKES Because it's as bad as talking about the Meaning of Life.

JANE I believe, Mr Shakespeare, that you are recorded as saying that it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

SHAKES Hey, that's pretty good! You remembered the lines! in the right order! Ever thought of going on the stage? A memory like that is enough to get you a major part in any production I've ever been involved with. Can you give us the middle twelve? Homer and I'll do the backing - Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

JANE Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more -

SHAKES There's where the poetic licence comes in - heard no more? Heard no more, my foot! Your average player is considerably more audible off-stage than on. "Dick! Where's my towel? Who's been using my make-up? Wasn't I wonderful? Oi - some bugger's nicked me sandwiches!" That's why I write in battle-scenes, to drown out the racket that's coming from the dressing-room.

JANE So you weren't being genuine in your admiration of my thespian skills?

SHAKES Seriously: the memory is good. You know that little custom of handing round programmes to the cast on the first night? They'll always read the programme, out of vanity, right, because it has their name in - not much else they can read, actually, some of them. The reason you hand the programmes round is not to check whether their names are spelt right -how would they know? - it's a last, desperate effort to make sure they remember the name of the character they're playing - or characters, as the case may be.

HOMER You mean they play more than one? At the same time?

SHAKES If they're lucky, they don't actually have to have conversations with themselves - except for the hero, of course, and that's different. And intended. He just has to steer clear of doctors and social workers. Some of the others, though, do get a little confused.

JANE Then why do you make them do these things, Mr Shakespeare?

SHAKES Catering.

JANE To the public's taste?

SHAKES The public has no taste - it does have a smell, but it doesn't have any taste. I'm talking about real catering - you order the food and drink for the piss-up afterwards on the basis of the number of characters in the play. If all the messengers happen to have been played by one person, who also doubled as the Dukes of Huntingdon, Bedford and all stations to Grantham, you're looking at more bottles of pale ale than you would be if each single "I shall, my liege" had been sharply but subtly characterised by having a different actor do it. What you miss in richness and variety of performance you make up for in the tenacity of the headache the following day. You have an artistic question, sir?

HOMER Is it always pale ale?

SHAKES It depends on the sponsor. Now, in the case of what I always think of as the Scottish and Newcastle play...

JANE Mr Shakespeare! Are you really reducing all art to a question of drink?

SHAKES Not at all - there's sex as well - though in the playhouses of my day -

JANE Mr Shakespeare! You have explained to us what you claim to be the practical reasons for restricting the number of actual actors, and you have gone so much against what I fear is your nature as to compliment me on my retentive memory, so that I hope you will not take it amiss if I display that faculty again by reminding you that Mr Homer asked a question to which you have not, as yet, given an answer.

SHAKES Right on. What was it, Costas?

HOMER Ummmm...

SHAKES And that's before the pale ale.

HOMER I'd rather have brown.

SHAKES It shall be noted.

HOMER Guinness, if you can manage it -

SHAKES Sorry, son - you have to be able to do the accent - you can only order Guinness by the O'Casey.

JANE Mr Homer asked why you said Omigod when he said we were talking about the Nature of Existence.

SHAKES Because it's metaphysical flim-flam.

JANE Could you perhaps explain your statement a little more clearly?

SHAKES It's a trick, a device, a stratagem to deceive the audience into thinking something's going on, when in fact it isn't.

JANE Audience? I'm afraid I don't quite see what you're driving at, Mr Shakespeare, because Mr Homer and I were talking among ourselves, to one another, and not for anyone else's benefit.

SHAKES Really believe that, do you? Both of you? So it all comes down to the differences between the genres.

HOMER Come again, Will?

SHAKES I haven't come once yet, laddie. French word: genre. Look, you write poems, epic poems, OK, and the lady there who looks like Mr Punch's dog, Toby - no, keep it on, it suits you - she writes novels, stories - and there's this voice in them that tells you things, but it's not the voice of one of the characters, because they don't speak all the time - it's the narrator, or the author, if you like. It tells you important things, like what time of day it is, or what happened during the thirty years before the story starts, or what the weather's like.

HOMER Now when the young dawn showed again with her rosy fingers...

SHAKES That's it.

JANE It is a truth universally acknowledged...

SHAKES Exactly.

JANE Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage...

SHAKES Right - now I can't do that sort of thing. I have to have Sir Walter coming on with his arms full of books, and he throws them aside one by one: "The Bible! can't abide it! Homer! too boring!"

HOMER Shakespeare! Arrant nonsense!

SHAKES All right, all right! Just for the sake of illustration! "Ah! The Baronetage, just my meat!"

HOMER Or else you have to have these two men coming on, separately, that is, and they meet, and the one says erm - hello - and the other says -erm - hello - and then the first one says, sort of casually, as if in conversation, "I haven't seen old Ulysses for a while, have you?" And the second one says, erm - "No - no - I haven't - it must be ooh - " and he looks at his watch - "ten years or more, mustn't it?"

SHAKES I think you've got the idea there, Homer, old son. You see, I can't just tell people the time of day - my characters have to go, "Which way's East, which way's East?" And then one of the other characters on the stage tells 'em and then they say, "Ah, it's the dawn, then."

JANE But look - the morn in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill -

SHAKES That's the tarted up version. But what you have to start with is something like,"Sod, it's bloody raining again, and the sun was only just shining!"

JANE So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

SHAKES Are you sure you wouldn't like a job acting? Your memory's certainly up to it.

JANE My memory is up to recalling that you were supposed to be telling us why you said Omigod when Mr Homer told you were discussing the Nature of Existence.

HOMER Ontology. It was an ontological discussion.

SHAKES Isn't that collecting cheese-labels? Or the study of onts - those things you find crawling round in the muesli when you haven't eaten it for six monthas.

JANE Mr Shakespeare -

SHAKES Right, right, right: now, what I'm getting at is that in your line of writing you have plots - beginnings, middles and ends -

HOMER Well -

SHAKES Yes?

HOMER Well -

SHAKES Come on, spit it out.

HOMER You're not going to like this.

SHAKES I don't suppose I will, but never mind.

HOMER I start in the middle.

SHAKES You what?

HOMER I start in the middle. Then I tell them about the beginning. then I go to the end. Then I stop.

SHAKES I'm glad you stop.

JANE Pity the habit isn't catching, Mr Shakespeare.

SHAKES Which one?

JANE Stopping.

SHAKES Oh, we all have to stop, sooner or later.

JANE Aren't you getting on to the nature of existence?

SHAKES Hardly. More like the nature of non-existence.

HOMER The non-nature of -

SHAKES Just count the syllabubbles and breathe deeply if you get a hemistich.

JANE Mr Shakespeare!

SHAKES Characters in novels and epic poems have to do something - but in a play, they can get away with just talking.

HOMER No!

SHAKES Yes.

HOMER No!!

SHAKES YES!! Like you and me, just now - all we did was contradict each other - but it fills up the lines with syllabubbles.

JANE But the characters have to talk about SOMETHING, surely, Mr Shakespeare? My characters talk about what they intend to do, and why - or else they talk about the weather, but you know that in fact they're shaping their relationships -

SHAKES The nature of existence is a very good substitute for nothing.

JANE Why?

HOMER Yes. Why?

SHAKES Training him up for the public-speaking contest, are you?

JANE WHY?

SHAKES Because there's no such thing. You have an existence. I have an existence.

JANE If you say he's a fiction, he'll only to prove otherwise. And he's bigger than you are.

SHAKES He has an existence. We all have different ones. The natures of our existences are all different. When three people like us are together, what do we talk about? Football. Real ale.

JANE Who's going to marry whom.

HOMER Who's going to kill whom.

JANE And when.

HOMER And how.

JANE All in white.

HOMER All in red.

SHAKES Liverpool supporter? Exactly. But there's a kind of play they've invented, where the number of characters and the number of actors are identical - which is artistically elegant but alcoholically disastrous - and the key to it is always that the people are DEAD and in HELL, and that explains why nobody else ever comes ON, and why the furniture is so bloody AWFUL! And the first one of this kind was written by John Paul - oh what's his name?

HOMER John Paul the Second?

JANE John Paul Belmondo?

HOMER John Paul George and Ringo?

SHAKES How did they get on to the Open University?

HOMER History of Twentieth Century Music, programme twenty-five -

SHAKES John Paul Sartre. That's who it was. An existentialist. And all they talk about is Existence. I tell you, Homer, old son, there is not a single sword-fight in the bloody whole of it.

HOMER Have at you, varlet! Zounds! Take that, knave!

SHAKES Thank you! We've done that bit! We're not into the eternal recurrence - that's another of those tricks they have - do the same bit twice, and that tells you they must be in hell, because everything's repeated endlessly, though I don't see what makes that different from telly in the summer or Sky Gold. Call it "a cult series" and you can go on showing it until the Flowerpot Men get elected to Parliament.

JANE Mr Shakespeare, it cannot have escaped your notice that we three have been alone and undisturbed for a considerable while. Are you not afraid that we may be similarly participating in one of these - what would you call it?

SHAKES Well, the French original was called Huis Clos -

HOMER Don't you mean Whee-splat? "Gods, receive me unworthy - "

JANE Mr Shakespeare - would you please answer my question?

SHAKES If I have to. No, I don't think we're in one of those, because our conversation flashes with wit, sparkles with brilliance and scintillates with repartee. And that's only my contributions.

JANE How could we be sure?

SHAKES We'd have to have some radical change.

HOMER Sword-fight. Duel. A god or goddess descends in a fiery chariot.

SHAKES Budget ?

HOMER A budgie? I don't think Zeus'd fancy that. Swans, yes, eagles, definitely, but budgies? A cuckoo, maybe, for the -

JANE Thank you, Mr Homer, I'm quite well up in nature study.

SHAKES Some radical change, that's the way to make sure - if you want to make sure. I mean, we could wait till the post-play piss-up, see the ratio of drink to cast - but I can't say I've noticed the messengers rushing on and off.

JANE I have impersonated Queen Elizabeth.

SHAKES Yes. But that's probably only worth a dry sherry. I tell you, you get better catering if your plane's a couple of hours late taking off, than you do for the three hours' traffic of the stage -

JANE What sort of radical change would you recommend?

SHAKES Well...how do you two end your things?

HOMER Death.

JANE Marriage.

SHAKES Can you tell the difference? Sorry - only a joke - sorry...

JANE Mr Homer, it seems to me self-evident that the participants in the two possibilities that Mr Shakespeare has suggested for proving our continued existence have to be drawn from among our own restricted number. I trust you follow me?

HOMER As closely as is consistent with your honour as a lady and my status as a gentleman, ma'am.

SHAKES How come he picks up your style so easily?

JANE Quality, Mr Shakespeare, quality. Now, Mr Homer, in view of what we have just said about our needing to participate in Death or Marriage, which would you opt for?

HOMER Oooohhh - hard one, that, isn't it?

SHAKES (sotto voce to Jane) Is this entirely ethical?

JANE Well, you can't call it cradle-snatching, can you? I mean, he is around two and a half thousand years older than I am.

SHAKES Yes, but -

JANE I assume he's simply spent longer in the jaccuzzi than you or I.

SHAKES You think that's what water does for you?

HOMER Eeny-meeny, miney-mo-...

JANE Oh, come on, Mr Homer, would you rather be in bed or dead?

HOMER Yes. Absolutely. Is that the choice, then? With Achilles, it was glory, and things like that - but he said he'd rather be alive as the poorest peasant than famous and in Elysium -

SHAKES You've blown it, haven't you? You've given it all away.

HOMER It's not that bad here. There's television. You can get pizzas delivered. The free-sheets get stuffed through the door every Thursday. You can enter the Reader's Digest Prize Draw.

SHAKES Are you sure he'll know the difference between death and marriage?

JANE Maybe not at first. But I'll teach him.

SHAKES I suppose you have lots of things in common.

JANE Certainly. He's very domesticated.

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

JANE What do you think we should get, dear? Doulton or Wedgwood?

HOMER How many syllabubbles?

JANE They make the Wedgwood at a place called Etruria.

HOMER Wedgwood, Wedgwood! But can I - can I - I mean - if I'm very happy - I -

JANE What?

HOMER Well, I might want to smash it.

JANE Can I buy some more?

HOMER Of course.

JANE And you won't interfere with me?

HOMER No more than you like being interfered with.

JANE (sotto voce to Shakespeare) I do hope you haven't corrupted him entirely!

SHAKES No more than he liked being corrupted.

HOMER Do you think this is what happened to all the other people who ought to have been in Elysium?

SHAKES What?

HOMER They got bored and went away.

JANE They committed themselves to change.

SHAKES You'd better watch her. She's into personal development.

HOMER Does that mean she'll want a little darkroom under the stairs?

SHAKES If she does have a little dark room, I'd keep my hand firmly on my petard if I went into it with her.

JANE Mr Shakespeare, I understand that one principally makes jokes about things one fears.

SHAKES Love and Death - in equal measure.

JANE Why?

SHAKES Because they're beyond my control.

JANE And?

SHAKES Because they mark an end. You realise that if you two go now, that means I get all the drink for the cast party?

HOMER There wouldn't have been any Guinness anyway - just that stuff that tastes like Zal pine disinfectant.

SHAKES Retsina? Of course -

HOMER Racial stereotyping! It makes me sick.

SHAKES I might have been able to get you some Guinness, if you could have done the accent -

JANE Don't tempt him, Mr Shakespeare.

HOMER It's time for a change, Will - we're none of us getting any younger.

SHAKES No. No. Tell me - what do the Gods do when they grow old?

HOMER Guest spots on Noel Edmonds' House Party.

SHAKES I thought you only watched Open University -

HOMER There was one day when I couldn't find the remote control -

SHAKES A likely story!

JANE Well, we must be off now, Mr Shakespeare.

SHAKES Where to?

JANE We'll find out when we get there, won't we?

SHAKES I'd better warn you, the end is nigh.

JANE That's precisely why we're going.

She brings down the embroidery frame on his warning index

-finger. They go off.

SHAKES What about my ruff?

JANE (calling from a distance) I don't want to get a chill in bed.

SHAKES Aren't you going to take your sheet?

HOMER We'll be buying a new set.

JANE Silk ones.

SHAKES The end. W. Shakespeare. Wm Shagspure. Will Shakespaw. Willy Shocksbeard. Ulysses sails up the Manchester Ship Canal and lands on a soft silver beach of shell-sand in Salford. Having put all the social workers he can find to the sword, he opens up a small taverna, and calls it - The Rover's Return.

BLACK