Upstart Crow (TV Series)

Sweet Sorrow (2017)

David Mitchell: Will

Quotes 

• Will Shakespeare : I only mention young Kate because her sensitive readings of the text have inspired me.

  Anne Shakespeare : You're not going all diddly doodah on her, are you?

  Will Shakespeare : Anne, please. 'Tis simply that I appreciate her faultless oral work. She has a fine chest and I particularly admire her assonance.

• Burbage : Thank you. Most impressive. He has exactly what it takes to be a star these days. There's no doubting that.

  Will Shakespeare : Are you mad? He's just a weird-looking Eton boy with a rather pretentious name.

  Burbage : As I said, he has exactly what it takes to be a star these days.

• Burbage : Romeo and Juliet be the title roles.

  Will Shakespeare : What? Oh, I see, you're working off that draft. Oh, that's all changed.

  Burbage : What's changed?

  Will Shakespeare : The title. It's not called 'Romeo and Juliet' any more. It's called 'Prince Escalus and the Nurse'.

• Lucy : [about the Maasai milk-drinking ceremony]  Oh, oh, it is a very boring ceremony. Bah! But not as boring as Henry the Sixth Part Three.

  Will Shakespeare : Ha Ha! You jest, of course. Hard to see how a five-act, forty-seven-character play written entirely in blank verse about a third of the life of a lesser-known Henry could be described as boring.

• Kit Marlowe : [about Henry Southampton]  You know him well. That posh boy you used to fancy.

  Will Shakespeare : I did not fancy him. I merely happened to mention in passing that he was lovelier than a summer's day and that his eternal beauty would live as long as men still breathed and had eyes to see. Entirely ambiguous lines, I think you'll agree, and not remotely suggestive of a deeply personal and agonizing private passion.

• Kate : [about Romeo and Juliet]  So exciting. English teatre's first proper romantic tragedy, and is all complete?

  Will Shakespeare : Pretty much. Although I'm still not entirely happy with the balcony scene. Something tells me it's going to be a biggie. What do you think? Goodnight, goodnight. Parting is just so boring... that I could say goodnignt till it be morning.

• Kate : Maybe you could afford to lose that one, Mr. Shakespeare. Bit weak.

  Will Shakespeare : It is not weak. It's a bolted-on pant-wetter. And in my view, it will get even funnier as the meaning of the pun fades ever further into history.

• Burbage : Kempe's line was rather more succinct. Yours is a tad obscure.

  Condell : Oh, very obscure.

  Kempe : Like, mad obscure.

  Will Shakespeare : It's not obscure at all. It's as clear as fairy snot.

• Will Shakespeare : I for one, hope that one day lady-acting will be made legal.

  Anne Shakespeare : Escept that, if it ever were, I expect most of the girls' parts would be hackneyed clichés, and like as not they'd be expected to show their boobingtons.

  Will Shakespeare : I fear you may be right. And also 'tis certain they'd earn less too.

  Anne Shakespeare : For doing the same job as a man? surely not. Well, that would be just ridiculous.