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