Our final honourable mention is a collection of sketches based on Shakespeare and his plays. The bard has provided a rich vein of comedy for those who wish to create parody or use his play plays for their inspiriation. After this series concludes we shall be embarking on a sequal entitled ‘Bard Movies’ which will delve into the way in which Hollywood his mined the works of the Bard for it’s output.
This live Shakespeare sketch called ‘A Small Rewrite’ was made for Comic Relief, with Hugh Laurie as Shakespeare and Rowan Atkinson as the editor. Atkinson is suggesting that Shakespeare shorten the ‘To Be or Not To Be’ soliloquy as being too long and boring – ‘the crowd hate it!’
Big Train was a British sketch comedy show where people in ordinary situations suddenly find themselves in absurd situations. The show was created by Graham Lineham and Arthur Mathews and starred Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap and Simon Pegg among others. In this sketch we meet the Shakespeare Lookalikes and learn about the master of the craft, Portaccio.
The cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) led by Don Rickles as the Friar, deconstruct Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. Rickles as usual completely dominates the performance, which was aired in January 1984. Juliet is played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is better known for her appearances on Seinfeld and Veep.
Rowan Atkinson again, this time in his Blackadder persona. Here in Blackadder Back and Forth with Colin Firth as Shakespeare. Blackaddre attacks Shakespeare on behalf of all the children who have had to study his plays at school. And also ‘for Ken Branagh’s endless uncut 4 hour version of “Hamlet.’
The Beatles bring us their version of ‘The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe’ from the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. performed in the characters of the ‘rude mechanicals’. For the spoof, Lennon took the female role of Thisbe, McCartney played Pyramus, Harrison was Moonshine and Starr played Lion. Incidentally, McCartney later owned a cat he named Thisbe. The Beatles recorded this television special ‘Around The Beatles between’ 9pm and 10.15pm, at Studio 5AB at Rediffusion’s Wembley Studios, London.
Robin Williams at the height of his powers on the Johnny Carson show in 1991gives his interpretation of Shakespeare as performed by some of Hollywood’s finest. Still a great loss to the world of comedy.
And finally a role reversal sketch from the Two Ronnies. Here it is the milkman who is the refined and liquistically sophisticated character; whereas Corbett plays Shakepeare as a cockney wide boy with the speech patterns to match.
