(A competition poem submitted on the theme of "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" run by the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.  I thought they could do with a bit of culture.  Worldwide fans will recognise this as a tired old re-post, topped and tailed for the occasion).

 

While this debate is at its height

I offer you a scoop tonight;

I shine a fresh revealing light

(Think me not knave nor jester!)

So let me end scholastic wait

For certes do I boldly state

The author was my great great great

Great great Uncle Fester.

 

His works they earned him some renown

But Fester’s titles let him down

Promoters would all groan and frown -

They couldn’t be much shiter;

And 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

As altered titles would appear

“King L” soon then became “King Lear”

And Fester was appalled.

 

And 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

When “Turned Out Nice for Our Raquel”

Was changed to “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”.

 

Thus with his silly beard and ‘tasche

Shakespeare cut such fancy dash

That Good Queen Bess thought him dead flash –

The charlatan impressed her.

But good things come to him what waits

And authorship this day I state

Was all along my great great great

Great great Uncle Fester.