Hamlet, Prince of Covid-stricken Denmark

 Scene 1 Elsinore Castle, Battlements. Hamlet walking around

Enter Ghost

HAMLET

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane…..

GHOST

At bloody last!

I’ve been haunting these battlements for the last three nights and seen no one. 

Where are my faithful guards, Marcellus and Bernardo?

HAMLET

They’ve been furloughed.

GHOST

And thy good friend Horacio, who is wont to visit thee here?

HAMLET

Self-isolating at Wittenberg. But good my lord

Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements?

GHOST

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night….

HAMLET

Yes, yes – get on with it. We’re not allowed an interval, to stop the audience mixing, so hurry up.

GHOST

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A plague stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

HAMLET

I knew he was a bad un.

GHOST

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed Covid in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour…..

HAMLET

Hang on – can you actually catch it that way?

GHOST

Let’s not get too realistic. You are talking to a ghost here……

Anyway – just kill the bastard. Ok?

HAMLET

Yes dad.

Scene 2 The Palace. Enter Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet.

CLAUDIUS

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET

[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET (ignoring them)

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

You’d want to kill yourself too as well

If you were stuck in a bubble with these two.

No sooner had dad died than my Uncle Claudius

Decided to marry my mother;

Guess it meant he could be part of our household

And get a bit of the other….

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

GERTRUDE

Look how our son is rapt.

CLAUDIUS

Not too tightly wrapped if you ask me.

Where’s Polonius? He might have some idea what to do with him.

GERTRUDE

Parliament’s been suspended — Polonius is working from home.

CLAUDIUS

I’ll give him a call and ask him to send Ophelia over.

GERTRUDE

She can only meet Hamlet if they take their daily exercise together.

CLAUDIUS

And I’ll send for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GERTRUDE

Travel is banned outside your local area.

CLAUDIUS

Damn. S’pose that means I can’t send Hamlet to England?

GERTRUDE

I think they’ve closed the airports. And he’d have to show a negative test and quarantine for ten days.

CLAUDIUS

Bugger.

Scene 3 Outside Elsinore Castle. Hamlet walking, Ophelia stalking.

HAMLET

To be, or not to be, that is the question,

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take…..

OPHELIA

Good my lord…..

HAMLET

Christ – can’t I soliloquise in peace? You’re not even supposed to be here – households can’s mix.

OPHELIA

Silly-quiz? On your own? Sounds like you need me – you loved me once.

HAMLET

Did I? Oh yeah – you can sit on my lap at the play tonight. I’m looking forward to that….

OPHELIA

The Players cancelled – theatres and performances are closed under the latest lockdown rules.

HAMLET

Shit – there goes another good plan.

The play’s the thing….

OPHELIA

What means my good lord?

HAMLET

Get thee to a nunnery – you should be safe from the virus there.

Exit Hamlet

OPHELIA

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

Scene 4. A graveyard

Hamlet approaches a gravedigger.

HAMLET

Whose grave's this, sirrah?

GRAVEDIGGER

Mine, sir.

HAMLET

I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

GRAVEDIGGER

Is that meant to be some sort of Shakespearean joke?

HAMLET (picks up skull)

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest….

GRAVEDIGGER

That’s not Yorick actually – he’s over there. And Horatio’s still at uni… You mad or something?

HAMLET

I am but mad nor’nor’ west.

GRAVEDIGGER

That’s good – the plague comes from the east.

Enter funeral party.

HAMLET

What, the fair Ophelia! (Jumps into the grave).

GRAVEDIGGER

That’s got to be against regulations – she might be dead but…2 metres, please….

LAERTES

The devil take thy soul!

(Grappling with him)

CLAUDIUS

Pluck them asunder. They’re not even wearing masks.

(Aside) Don’t worry Laertes – I’ll sort it.

Scene 5 A room in the palace. Hamlet and Laertes prepare to fight.

HAMLET

These foils have all a length?

OSRIC

Ay, my good lord.

They fight. Hamlet is injured.

They swap swords. Laertes is injured.

GERTRUDE

The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET

Good madam!

CLAUDIUS

Gertrude, do not drink.

[Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

HAMLET

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:

LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;

I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

HAMLET

A plague on both your houses – sorry, wrong play.

Then, venom, to thy work.

Stabs CLAUDIUS

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others

FORTINBRAS

Where is this sight?

HAMLET

O, I die;

But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice.

FORTINBRAS

Ambassador – you have the Oxford vaccine – administer it to Hamlet.

Ambassador injects Hamlet.

FORTINBRAS

There – now would you like to explain what’s happened here?

HAMLET

A miracle! I’m cured. I’m King! I’m….

FORTINBRAS

…facing the charge of murdering Claudius….(looks around)…and Laertes.

Oh, and Polonius.

And we might ask for Ophelia and Gertrude’s deaths to be taken into account too.

You’re goin’ down mate.

HAMLET

Would it help if I said a ghost told me to do it?

FORTINBRAS

Better if you just plead insanity.

HAMLET

The rest is silence.

Covid-Crossed Lovers....

 Romeo and Juliet

Scene 1. A street

ABRAHAM

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON

I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAHAM

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON

[Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say ay?

Enter PRINCE, with Attendants

PRINCE

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,

You should not be mixing in a public place

Know you not this virus is real?

Where are your masks, where social distancing?

Get thee home, for there will be no appeal

If charges are brought against you for ignoring

The restrictions of this lockdown….

MONTAGUE

My Lord, I will send them home with all due haste.

Exit Prince

LADY MONTAGUE

O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?

Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO

Still whining about Rosaline somewhere I think

I’ll try to cure him – it’s driving me to drink….

Scene 2. Another street

BENVOLIO

Tomorrow at the feast of Capulet's

Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,

With all the admired beauties of Verona:

Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,

Compare her face with some that I shall show,

And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun

Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIO

Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

Herself poised with herself in either eye:

ROMEO

I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,

But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

Scene 3 The Capulets’ House

LADY CAPULET

Tell me, daughter Juliet,

How stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET

It is an honour that I dream not of.

LADY CAPULET

Well, think of marriage now; Thus then in brief:

The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

This night you shall behold him at our feast;

So shall you share all that he doth possess,

By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE

No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men. (Sniggers)

Enter a Servant

Servant

Good madam, your husband seeks you downstairs

He’s bloody annoyed.

Enter Lord Capulet

CAPULET

The Prince says we are not to have our ball:

Even though we are to be masked, as the law demands

Indoors, ‘tis said, thirty folk may mix

As long as we with social distancing and masks comply.

'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,

Come pentecost as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.

But now the rules have changèd yet again

And into lockdown one more time we plunge

So tonight’s party’s been called off.

Blast the Prince, the virus and all to hell.

All stomp off.

Scene 4. Yet another street

MERCUTIO

Well that’s that, no Rosaline for you tonight 

Another lockdown has put paid to our evening fun.

ROMEO

I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO

And so did I.

ROMEO

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

But hear my dream, for from it you’ve made good escape.

I dreamed about the Capulet Montague feud

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the sound and clamour as their parents weep,

For, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Was now the two hours' traffic of my sleep;

ROMEO

What a stupid dream

BENVOLIO

Nay – I dreamed too…

That you had killed Tybalt and been banished to Mantua…

ROMEO

Well he would have deserved it, bighead that he is….

BENVOLIO

…and you returned to Verona to find the gracious Juliet dead.

ROMEO

Who??

MERCUTIO

Nay, in my dream she did not die, but slept…

BENVOLIO

I foresaw your death too Mercutio…

MERCUTIO

What?? A plague on both your houses.

But Romeo in my dream did kill himself.

BENVOLIO

See – you’re better off out of it mate.

ROMEO

Yeah – guess you’re right. Come on, lets get some beers in and watch the football.

EXEUNT.

A Midsummer Night’s dream of Covid

 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

SCENE 1. THESEUS’S PALACE

THESEUS

Welcome, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?

EGEUS

Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,

This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke……

THESEUS

Yes, yes – but you know no marriage can take place.

Indeed the fair Hippolyta cannot be my wife

Until three moons have passed; this is the law

Laid down by our esteemed government.

So when at last this lockdown we put by

And free again to wed are all my subjects

Again your plea I’ll hear with all my heart

Till then, do us a favour and clear off out of it.

Exeunt all except Lysander and Hermia.

LYSANDER

How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA

Belike for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;

And she respects me as her only son. –

And better still, she’s only in Tier One!

They run off.

Enter Helena

HELENA

How happy some o'er other some can be!

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;

He will not know what all but he do know:

I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight

And we’ll run after them into the night.

SCENE 2 THE FOREST

QUINCE

Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

BOTTOM

But, good Peter Quince, have you not heard – all weddings are banned while lockdown’s on.

QUINCE

Oh shit – I forgot.

Exeunt

Enter Oberon

OBERON

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

TITANIA

What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:

I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERON

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy,

To be my henchman.

TITANIA

Set your heart at rest:

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

He is in my bubble

And thou canst not come within two metres of him.

Exit

OBERON

Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove

Till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither. 

I once saw a plague like this we now have.

In Oxford I remember a scientist’s eye

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:

The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid

Will make or man or woman immune to plague

Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again

Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

PUCK

I'll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes.

Exit

OBERON

Having once this juice,

I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.

Exit

Enter Demetrius, with Helena in pursuit.

HELENA

I am your spaniel

DEMETRIUS

Sod off.

Exit

Enter Hermia and Lysander

LYSANDER (yawning)

One turf shall serve as pillow for us two;

HERMIA

No – keep two metres distant – you know the rule!

They fall asleep.

Enter Helena and Demetrius. Enter Puck who puts them to sleep.

PUCK (squeezing juice on their eyes)

When thou wakest,

Thou takest

Full protection

‘Gainst infection

With the vaccine’s help we see

You with your friends can safely be.

Enter OBERON

What about Titania?

PUCK

Small problem about her fancying a donkey, but think it’s sorted now.

Enter Theseus

THESEUS

Can we get married now?

OBERON

Not till you’ve had your vaccines.

THESEUS

I really cannot believe all this crap is really happening….

PUCK

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream.

But the virus is real, sad to say

So we’re staying at home to keep safe today.

THE END

Much Ado About Nothing.....Covid Style

 Turning my attention to another great Shakespeare play that could have gone slightly differently if the virus had hit........

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

SCENE I. Before LEONATO'S house.

Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger

LEONATO

I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon

comes this night to Messina.

BEATRICE

I pray you, is Signior Montanto returned from the

wars or no?

Messenger

I know none of that name, lady: there was none such

in the army of any sort.

LEONATO

What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO

My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

Messenger

O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE

But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young

squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Messenger

He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

HERO

Ooh, he sounds nice….

MESSENGER

Don Pedro is approached.

Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR

DON PEDRO

 Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. 

CLAUDIO (looking at Hero)

Hear hear….

HERO (blushing)

You are welcome sir.

LEONATO (checking his phone)

Dear sirs, it says here that Boris has imposed another lockdown. You must go straight home and not mix with anyone outside your household for at least six months.

CLAUDIO, HERO, BENEDICK and BEATRICE

Bugger…

DON JOHN – evil cackle.

THE END.

Shakespeare in the Time of Covid...Macbeth.

 Lying awake the other night, my mind started moving without my permission - like it does - towards the way the current pandemic might have impacted on the plots of famous stories and plays. By the time I went back to sleep. I’d visualised what Macbeth might look like if Covid had hit 11th Century Scotland...

Macbeth

ACT I

SCENE I. A desert place.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.

FIRST WITCH

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

SECOND WITCH

When the vaccination’s done,

When the lockdown’s been and gone.

THIRD WITCH

That’ll take most of 2021…..

FIRST WITCH

Where the place?

SECOND WITCH

Upon the heath.

THIRD WITCH

There to meet with Macbeth.

Loud cackles

SCENE 2 A Heath

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO

MACBETH

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO

What are these

So wither'd and so wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,

And yet are on't? 

THIRD WITCH

All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO

Speak to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favours nor your hate.

FIRST WITCH

Hail!

SECOND WITCH

Hail!

THIRD WITCH

Hold on – we’re only allowed to mix with one person from outside our household….

Exeunt witches

MACBETH

Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more…..

BANQUO

The earth hath bubbles, as each household has,

And these are not within our bubble. Have ye your mask on?

Infected be the earth on which they stood – come, we must sanitise….

SCENE 3

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter

LADY MACBETH

'They met me in the day of success: and I have

learned by the perfectest report, they have more in

them than mortal knowledge…’

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised: 

Enter a Messenger

What is your tidings?

MESSENGER

The king comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH

Is not thy master with him? 

Messen

So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:

LADY MACBETH

Exit Messenger

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits…..

Enter Messenger

MESSENGER

My lady, we have just gone into Tier 4 

The king cannot visit our household after all.

LADY MACBETH

Well that’s scuppered our plot then….

Might as well finish the play here.

THE END