Original subtitles

SHE SIGHS

Ah, me!

Weary pass these sombre days.

I am wasting my life!

KNOCKING

Who stands without? MUFFLED EXCLAMATION

I know not this sinister muffled voice!

There be evil spirits abroad.

Stands a naughty saucing demon without.

I must bar the door!

KNOCKING

On second thoughts, so bored am I that a frenzied encounter

with a naughty saucing demon might prove a welcome distraction.

SINISTER MUSIC PLAYS

Oh, it's only you, Mr Shakespeare, back from the shops

with our essential items. MUFFLED SPEECH

I was saying that I cannot believe how many people out there aren't

wearing bubonic plaguey beaks.

So irresponsible!

I know. I call such folk Bubon-idiots.

Brilliant, don't you think?

I'm hoping it'll catch on.

Mm. Not sure.

I think it might.

Smug, self-righteous fury is a powerful

linguistical poncing-toggler.

So irresponsible!

"I'm not wearing a plaguey beak", they say.

"I'm a freeborn Englishman.

"Why did we bother triumphing at Agincourt if we end up

"enslaved in plaguey beaks like snivelling Frenchies?"

"It's my problem if I get it!" Yes, but it's my problem

if you give it to me, you utter arsing-mungle!

And if you don't wear a beak, people will die!

That's what I should have said. Did you say it?

I very nearly said it. Well done.

That very nearly told them!

Well, I think they knew what I was thinking.

I tell you who I really hate.

The ones who wear a plaguey beak,

but around their necks, like that's enough.

It's not enough. It's not anything!

A plaguey beak isn't a scarf!

It's not there to keep your chin warm.

You can't just wear a plaguey beak.

You have to wear it over your nose and futtocking mouth!

Mind you, I can't stand the mask police either.With you there, Kate.

A pox on such virtue-prodding mealy-smugs.

We must practice goodwill and common sense.

A harassed mum allowing her screaming three-year-old

to go unbeaked in the queue

at the greengrocer's is of course reckless and irresponsible

but me momentarily removing mine to enjoy a modest and essential

six-course meal at Miss Lucy's is entirely reasonable.

Absolutely. And also entirely safe, if concluded before 10pm.

Exactly. After 10pm, that's when the plague gets really infectious.

As the Government's chief alchemist says,

"Follow the superstition."

Anyway, enough of the virtue-prodding mealy-smugs.

Likewise, the Bubon-idiots.

It's not going to catch on, Kate. I think it might.

We Brits love a collective bitch!

So, how was your shopping, Mr Shakespeare?

Did you get all our essential items? No, I didn't.

Still not a scrap of damp moss for the privy to be found

in all of the South Bank.

Still? People are just mad!Every tree stump and ancient gravestone

stripped of moistly compliant bum shank friendly vegetation

from Southwark to the bridge.

I hate hoarders.

Why? Just why? There be no shortage.

So, here's an idea. Let's create one.

It's actually hoarding that creates the shortages.

Although, of course, in such uncertain times, it does make sense

to shop prudently, even for socially responsible citizens such as us.

Which is why I thought it sensible to pick up another ham,

some more turnips, a few potatoes, more salted meat

and an extra bundle of sugar sticks,

which is definitely not hoarding.

Where's the booze? There isn't any booze.

You said you'd get booze.

Tell me you got more booze!

Yes, Kate, I got more booze.

The single most essential plaguey lock-in item of all.

KATE SQUEALS

But...

..we must not crack before 5pm.

No, definitely not. We have to stop the daytime drinking.

But beer's not booze.

I mean, not serious booze.

And absolutely essential,

confined as we are day after day,

firmly locked behind that which though it be sometimes ajar

contains no honey...Urgh. ..is always at an opening,

but be not a minor member of the royal family

and has a large knob, but be not the Earl of Southampton.

Not that I'd know, of course. We're just good friends.

Mr Shakespeare. If you mean door, why don't you just say door?

Because, as I think I may have mentioned, it's what I do.

And speaking of which, if you'll excuse me, I must get back

to work. With the theatres closed once more and all London

under brutal plaguey lock-in,

now is the time to write a really great play.

I'm just grateful we're not in Manchester.

Remember when they introduced the two tier system?

Absolutely. North and south.

We London elites think we have it bad,

but tis said the northern folk had to isolate in sealed barrels.

I know. I had hoped to return to my dear wife, Anne, and children

in Stratford, but all such nonessential movement be banned.

Besides the country folk have erected barricades

and stand at every turnpike with pitchfork ready,

shouting, "City toffs not welcome!

"Don't bring your plague here, you pestilent pamperloins."

Yes, me thinks we city toffs will remember that when

they want us back to stay in their horrid guest houses

and pay exorbitant prices

for their foul cream teas.

Anyway, with my servant Bottom pressed into service

collecting deadies, tis just you and me, Kate, locked in together.

And I must get on!

Yes, you must.

Can't make the same mistake I made the last time they closed

the theatres in the plaguey year of 1593.

I only produced The Comedy of Errors and Love's Labour's Lost,

both of which... Were absolute clunkers.

Well, perhaps very slightly short of mine sublime best.

Totally incomprehensible

and very, very dull.

Little does the fond child know that it's deliberate.

Being incomprehensible and very, very dull is one of my best tricks -

the very proof of my genius!

For I've discovered that a certain type of wanksome braining bonce

doth ever despise honest tears and laughter and will instead

seek out the wilfully obscure in theatre so that they can pretend to

understand it and thus look clever.

I mean, face it, Mr Shakespeare,

a Comedy of Errors wasn't a comedy.

Although it was certainly an error.

And Love's Labour's Lost was just convoluted bolingbrokes.

A king, a queen, three knights and three princesses

all hopelessly and impossibly entangled.

I mean, we all enjoy a love triangle, but a love octagon

is just desperate and try-hard, and also ever so slightly pervy.

You should raise your game. I know, Kate.

I have to use this plaguey lock-in time properly

and create a classic.

The new king doth love the theatre.

As you know, he has dubbed our old Lord Chamberlain's company

The King's Men.

A great honour, of course, but now it's personal,

which is quite scary.

James be England's first Caledonian king

and as we all know, there is no-one more touchy and minded to take

offence than an expat Scot.

I know. His one dream is to bind the separate

nations of England and Scotland together in one union.

Which is clearly never going to happen.

I think it might. The king be determined.

Well, if it does, I'll give it 400 years tops.

In the meantime, the King must be flattered and cosseted.

Thus, I'm working on a new play set in Scotland in which everyone

is Scottish and the leading character is both Scottish

and the King... of Scotland.

Oh, that should cover it, but are you qualified to write it?

Excuse me? Is the world's greatest playwright

qualified to write a play?

I really can't think. To write THIS play.

I'm worried about cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation!

Well, should an English person write a Scottish story?

After all, it's not your lived reality.

But art is by very definition a product of the imagination!

My plays portray kings, commoners, Moors, Jews, Papists, sorcerers,

women, sprites, human donkeys, Frenchmen, although of course never

in a positive light.

But by your argument, I would have none of them.

All of my plays would have to be about

a literary genius with a fine head of hair.

I just think it's an important conversation to have, that's all.

Well, we've had it. Can we never, ever have it again?

History is on my side.Stop it!

I'm writing a bloody Scottish play, and that's that.

With witches, despite outrageously not being a witch!

I'm using that old multiple murder plot I dreamt up

when we were staying in Stratters that time and I thought

I'd poisoned my neighbour with the milk.Mm.

Of course, the entire story is in Holinshed's Chronicles,

which I've been reading in the privy.

Maybe that helped a bit? Coincidence, Kate.

It's all my idea, as are all my plays,

whatever you may or may not have been reading in the privy.

Anyway, I've used these months of plaguey lock-in to work

and so far it's brilliant.

If also cultural theft. Stop it, Kate!

I have my action,

my heroic battles and brutal murders, my flawed and tragic hero.

King James will love all that, but his is also

a sensitive and poetic soul.

He will demand spiritual depth to the monarch I depict,

so I need one truly great speech, a forensically perceptive internal

monologue on the utter nothingness of existence

and the weary, plodding progress of time.

THEY BOTH SIGH

But where am I to find inspiration for such a speech?

Enveloped as we are in the utter nothingness of existence

and the weary, plodding progress of time.

Well, you must try, Mr Shakespeare. We must both try to use this time

constructively. See it as a gift, a unique opportunity.

I shall write a 12,000 line poem and you must write the one

great speech that will raise your Scottish play to genius.

Come, to our quills!

KATE SIGHS God, I'm bored!

Locked in. Locked in, month after month after month.

Do you know it's nearly Christmas? Goodness, is it really?

Yes, I was keeping an Advent calendar, but it was too depressing.

Today, a little window and tomorrow a little window.

And tomorrow and tomorrow.

Such a petty pace creeping from day to day.

I know. Well put.

When you think how many times the city authorities assured us

that everything would be back to normal by Christmas.

And before that, it was going to be back to normal by the summer.

Remember those balmy days last spring when we were assured

that the plague was no worse than the flu with

pustulant bum boils?

When each day the town crier brought assurances that we can quickly beat

this with English pluck and Armada spirit, and we'll all be free

and frolicking by June?Oh, and we were all free and frolicking

by June.For a week and a half. Oh, ten glorious days!

Mad frolicking! Potty frolicking!

Everybody went completely loopy doodah,

the entire country utterly arsing-mungled.

Mingling willy nilly.

God, I miss mingling my nilly with a willy.

I miss mingling my willy with a nilly.

And let's face it, Mr Shakespeare, on occasion

mingling your willy with a willy?

How many more times, Kate? The Earl of Southampton

and I are just good friends.

You write one sonnet.

Uh, 27!

But what a party it was! One glorious crazed week

and a half of drinks and debauching.

And then the town crier sent us all straight back into plaguey

lock-in.The dreaded second wave. Which killed the town crier.

How many waves has it been now?

I lost count about the time I lost the will to futtocking live.

15, I think.

15 waves. In, out, in, out.

Punctuated by brief periods

of reckless and irresponsible shaking it all about.

But enough of idle chatter. I must write my speech.Absolutely.

Otherwise, your great Scottish play will seem like a tale told

by an idiot...Well, I don't know about that.

..full of sound and fury.

Yes. Thank you...sig... I get it, Kate!

Now, can we please have a little peace?

Oh, well, pardon me for breathing.

We are sharing this space, you know.

We did make the decision to lock in together.

We are both working from home.

And I'm not stopping you.

Just no more futtocking baking.

I have produced some very fine fruit loaves.Some?

Kate, you've produced hundreds.

There's only so much raisin bread

two people can eat!We got through all my date and walnut baguettes!

Only because we used them as draught excluders.

I see you've already had two of my fluffy scones.As a wobbly table

wedge and a beer coaster.Oh!

And while we're on the subject of your locked-in culinary fetishes,

promise me that you won't make any more pickles.

You said you liked my pickles!

Yes, because who doesn't love an impenetrably fibrous root vegetable

suspended in vinegar. Particularly 57 jars of them!

I pretended to like your pickles to stop you constantly asking me

if I liked your pickles. Didn't you get that?

Just look out of the privy window.

You'll see a huge pile of turnips and mustard seed. That should give

you a clue.Well, your home-brewed mead be siphoned straight

from the devil's cod-dangle!

You drank it!Only because we'd drank every other drop

of alcohol in the house! I am trying to work!So am I!

Alas...

It's a balcony singer!

Oh, joy.Oh!

Discourteously

For I have loved you... Oh!

I remember when first his sweet song was heard. So important,

so empowering. We were all adjusting to our new unfamiliar locked-in

world, isolated and alone.

And then a beautiful, solitary voice rang out. People scurried

to their doors and windows to listen as the happy balcony singer

shared his talent selflessly and without thought of profit.

How we cheered, how we danced and waved to each other.

A community once more.

And then the bastable did it again the next day.

And again. And again.

Yes.

It did start to lose its novelty a bit.

Suddenly, he wasn't a selfless unifier at all. Just a boring,

loud-mouthed egotist showing off on a balcony.

A poor player strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage.

Greensleeves...

Shut the futtock up, you grimsome lovvie-kissie!

Nobody cares any more!

We are over it!

Oh!

SOBBING

And is heard no more.

That was a little harsh, Mr Shakespeare.

Art is still important.

In fact, I was thinking you should send a note

to your celebrity friends, Messrs Burbage, Condell and Kempe,

suggesting some sort of shared performance gesture,

because surely what the nation really needs right now

is a group of pampered folderols

making a public statement showing how special they are and how deeply

they feel about stuff.

You don't think that might be viewed as vainglorious signalling

of personal virtue and evidence of narcissism

so all-consuming it borders on mental illness?

No, people aren't that cynical! They see the good in things.

Speaking of which - Oh, my goodly godlingtons,

I nearly forgot!

SOLITARY CHEERING AND BANGING

I have decided to stop clapping.

No?!I think I must. It has been only me for over a month.

I had noticed. It all started so joyfully,

the whole town cheering

the grotsome corpse collectors, banging our pots,

tooting our horns, lord and groundling alike,

all appearing in their doorways once a week

in a shared moment of humble respect.

And then it got a bit boring. I'm afraid so.

Slowly but surely, the goodwill began to dissipate.

Whispers were raised that while it was all very well clapping

the grotsome corpse collectors, perhaps a greater mark of respect

would be to pay them a decent wage and provide them with slightly

more substantial protective clothing.

People began to stop clapping.

I only lasted a week.

Happy, enthusiastic faces in doorways

turned to angry, resentful ones behind curtains.

Until only you remained, Kate.

The last good soul in our parish, banging your little iron saucepan

with your little wooden spoon. Ping, ping, ping.

But it was important and it mattered.

We owe the grotsome corpse collectors so much.

Let us hope we remember our debt in better times.

I'm sure we will. For at heart,

we are a generous and caring people, sustained by love and common cause.

Exactly. Well said.

Oi, Jack Smidgens! I see you sneaking around to Molly Trout's

for a saucy frolic! That is not an essential journey!

It's futtocking essential to me, you bald bastable!

I am not bald! I have a low face.

Hey, you! Gertie Longirdle, that's the third time you've walked

your dog today! I shall report you to the neighbourhood watch.

Pervy, little snitching creep!

I am not a pervy, little snitching creep!

I'm a concerned citizen monitoring irresponsible dog walking.

Haven't you heard? If you walk your dog more than once a day,

people will die!

Incredible.

I haven't seen my family in months.

I missed my father's funeral. I never even got the chance

to say goodbye. And these utterly selfish bastables can't constrain

their dog walking,

even though if they walk their dogs too often, people will die.

Although, to be fair, you almost never see your family

because you live in London and they live in Stratford.

And also, to be frank, you wouldn't have said so much as goodbye

to old Mr Shakespeare as good riddance.

Tis true. Dad was the least mourned man in Stratford.

The party went on all night.

I felt sorry for my mum, though. Anne wrote that she had

to be helped away from the grave.

Was she too distraught?

No, she'd twisted an ankle dancing on it.

Well, Mr Shakespeare was an old man.

His time had come.

Yes, that's what makes bubonic plague so wicked.

It disproportionately affects the young.

Yes, tis a fact that those of 5 to 30 be most at risk

with all their lives ahead of them.

That is why the nation must act selflessly to protect the young.

If it were the other way round, it wouldn't matter.

A plague that only killed the stooped and ancient

and then but rarely would be fine.

Those who had lived long and happy

and supped full well already on the resources of the world

might easily shuffle off this mortal coil

a month or two early without any great harm done.

Tis hard to imagine any compelling argument for such an equitably

selective disease stopping the nation in its tracks.

Unless, of course, you were vulnerable and elderly.

Then you might think twice.

Or if your granny was.

Well, tis fortunate we are not faced with such a moral dilemma.

Yes, but if we ever were, I like to think that the nation

would still come together and make great sacrifices to protect

the weak, even though they be but old and frail.

Well, only time will tell, Kate.

Only time will tell.

And now I really must attempt to write this speech.

Yes, you must.

I shall be quiet, I promise!

I was thinking...Urgh...that a really good way to pass the time

might be, and this is going to sound weird, so bear with me, to create

a series of cutesomely wry and self-aware semi-comical

15-second dance routines.

Not sure I get the point.

Ah, but that is the point.

It's a generational thing.

I get it. And you don't.Get what?

It.What?15-second dance routines

so cutesomely wry, self-aware and semi-comical

that they baffle anyone who doesn't get it.Get what?

I can't explain. You're too old!

Don't you see? You have to get it to get it.

Get what? Show me an example.

All right. But it won't help.

Ha! Heh!

He! He! Hee! Woo!

Woo! Oh! Woo! Oh! Wah!

Oh! Ooh! Ah! Ooh!

Hee-hee! Hee-hee! Hee-hee!

Woo! Woo!

See?

Sorry, I still don't get it.

I have absolutely no idea why you are doing this silly dance

that is so specifically a quarter of a minute long.And you never will.

No matter how many times I show you or how often you make me

try to explain it, to you it will only ever be a tickle of a tune

and a toggle of a dance, which means nothing. But to me, young

and knowingly self aware, I could happily tickle-toggle all day.

Of course, it would be even more satisfying if there was some way

that millions and millions of people were able to watch me do it.

Let's hope that day never dawns.

It would be hard work indeed finding the energy

to write brilliant plays

in a world where young people's attention spans and intellectual

ambition had shrunk to the point where they ignored dense three-hour

verse dramas in favour of 15 seconds of tickle-toggling.

Yes, I do see that.But since that grim day be not yet here...

Yes, yes! You must write your big speech.

I think I'll cut my hair.Oh!

Nothing drastic. Just give myself a fringe.

Kate, you gave yourself new fringes during the sixth, seventh

and eighth waves.

At one point, your forehead was nearly as tall as mine.

It looked better after I bleached it with lemon juice.

No, it didn't. Nor after you'd shaved it into

the style of the newly discovered Mohawk tribe

of the North American Seaboard.

Now, seriously, Kate, I must concentrate. If when the theatres

finally reopen, my big new Scottish play be short one brilliantly

illuminating reflection on the nothingness of existence

and the pointless passage of time,

the King will think the whole drama shallow and sensationalist!

Yes, I know. It is crucial you get this speech right.But I can't

concentrate on it because I'm adrift in the nothingness of existence

and the pointless passage of time! Inspiration eludes me!

And if I incur the King's displeasure, he will give me

a haircut so severe it will include my entire head.

Oh, my goodly godlingtons! It's so obvious.

What?This! This is your inspiration!

What?Us! Now! The nation questioning the nothingness

of existence and the pointless passage of time.

Draw your speech from that.

Yes, Kate, of course!

Absolutely. I can see it now.

Macbeth, a once noble warrior, corrupted by greed and the foul

whispers of wraiths and witches, his vaulting ambition

come to naught, his wife dead by her own hand,

his kingdom assaulted, all hope gone,

decides to bake fruit bread, give himself a funny haircut

and create a wryly comic 15-second dance routine

that you have to get in order to get!

I was only trying to help. Well, please don't.

But it hasn't all been pointless, has it, Mr Shakespeare?

What?The dreadful plague years of 1593 and 1603,

when all the theatres shut, assemblies were prescribed

and the whole nation huddled in its homes in fear?

I like to think perhaps it will cause a spiritual reset,

a chance to step back and take stock of the things we really value,

that actually matter.

Well, it's a nice thought.And, also, perhaps it's given our

tired old world a break from restless human folly.

After all, while we be locked in our homes, there be no land

cleared, no rivers dammed, no forests felled.

Nature has its moment and all God's creatures a year without fear

that man will destroy its very habitat.

That has to be a good thing, doesn't it?

Yes, Kate, it does.

But it brings me no comfort, child.

Because even if humanity has by some miracle

used this time to take stock of the things that actually matter,

and if perhaps nature has been given momentary relief from its brutal

servitude to man, it won't make any difference

because the second this is all over and humanity is

free to roam once more,

we will be exactly as shallow and facile and selfish

and destructive as we ever were.

We will have learnt nothing, Kate.

Nothing.

Because frankly, we never do.

KATE SIGHS

Unhappy thought indeed.

Ah, me!

Weary pass these sombre days.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last

syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

who struts and frets his hour upon the stage...

..and then is heard no more.

Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...

..signifying nothing.

SHE SIGHS

Hang on.

Hang the futtock on!

What?

Nothing. Just jotting something down. You know, being brilliant.

Well, you da bard!

Oh, I'm da bard, all right!

BELLS TOLL Listen, Mr Shakespeare!

I'd lost all track of days! It's Christmas!

By Saint Thomas's tiny testicles, so it is!

Merry Christmas, Kate!

Merry Christmas.

I'm afraid I have no present for you.

On the contrary, Kate.

On the contrary.

BELLS JINGLE

Carol singers! Oh!

CAROLLING You see, Mr Shakespeare,

community does count and people need it more than ever!

Coming together to share in both their joy

and their sorrow.

But, Kate, that's all very well but it's still irresponsible.

Don't they realise we're not supposed to mingle?

It's all right. They're mingling responsibly, look!

Maintaining a two yard social distance between each singer

and all wearing plaguey beaks!

A socially responsible Christmas.

How wonderful!

And just as much fun in its own way.

Let us join them, Mr Shakespeare.

Let us go outside and join our community and stand together,

two yards apart, suitably masked, and raise our voices as one.

Yes, Kate.For peace, love and goodwill to all

in the true spirit of Christmas!

MUFFLED CAROL SINGING

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