(invited to re-post the oldie)

 

You see it is self-evident

To note the way I complement

Rhythm, rhyme so eloquent,

Constructing verse with thrift;

One part’s ingenuity

The second sheer ability

The third a family legacy-

A rare ancestral gift.

 

Perhaps you won’t appreciate

This goes back to a Tudor date

To my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great

Great Great Uncle Fester

On the throne sat Good Queen Bess

Who saw my uncle’s talentfulness

His plays they met with some success

And Fester quite impressed her.

 

There was however one small thing

Prevented him from advancing

And meant his plays would never bring

The rich fame he deserved

This minor fallibility

Denied to him posterity

And meant his name would never be

Historically preserved.

 

His comedies and histories,

And tear-jerking tragedies

Were spoiled by this flaw of his

Which minor, was so vital;

What little thing went so awry?

He just refused to modify

His plays which each was let down by

The weakness of its title.

 

The closest courtiers of the queen

Fearful of the guillotine

Sensed the need to intervene

In order to delight her;

While Fester’s title diarrhoea

Caused Stratford’s players to snipe and sneer

So hence they fetched in Bill Shakespeare

To be his title-writer.

 

The first one that Bill Shakespeare changed

Had Uncle Fester near deranged

He didn’t think there nothing strange

With “Much To Do ‘bout Bugger All”;

He slashed his red quill most severe

Altered titles would appear

“King L” soon then became “King Lear”

And Fester was appalled.

 

Simply for box office pennies

He cynically changed to “Venice”

Fester’s “Coal Merchant Called Denis”

About a strike at t’pit.

He gave that Stratford playwright hell

For changing “Turned Out Nice for Our Raquel”

Into “All’s Well that Ends Well” -

The poncy Southern git.

 

“Measure for Measure” he lambasted

Fester swore he'd nowt but shafted

“Fill my Pint You Thieving Bastard”

But Auntie kept him in check.

And it might have only been a smidgin’

But when he heard he’d been abridgin’

“Shall I compare thee to my best pidgin’?”

He’d’a wrung his bloody neck.

 

He renamed dramas quite sublime

Then went beyond these tight confines

By tinkering with single lines

As Uncle raged again

He substituted poetry

In Fester’s best soliloquies

Eg “To be or not to be”

From “Thou mun please thissen”.

 

“Wherefore art thou?” he thought thin

Compared to “Where the bloody ‘ell ya bin?”

Preferring “Lads pipe down yer din”

“Lend me your ears” was dire

Apoplectic he was sent

“The Winter of our Discontent”

Was changed from the more eloquent

“Chuck some coil on t’fire”.

 

And fo it’f clear from thif you fee

Whence doth cometh my ability

To pen fuch peerleff poetry

(That Pam Ayref I deteft her)

I may be therefore well imbued

With talent – that’f for certitude

But mi greateft debt of gratitude’f

-  To the mufe of Uncle Fefter.