Lucy Vickery

Shakespeare does Dallas

issue 09 November 2013

In Competition 2822 you were invited to submit an extract from a scene from a contemporary soap opera (television or radio) as Shakespeare might have written it.

The idea of filtering an aspect of popular culture through the lens of the Bard for comic effect is not a new one, of course. A recent example comes in the shape of a George Lucas-Shakespeare mash-up from Ian Doescher, who recasts the Star Wars saga as a five-act play in iambic pentameter: ‘In time so long ago begins our play / In star-crossed galaxy far, far away.’

In a closely contested field, Paul Goring, Anne Woolfe, Caroline Macafee, G. Tapper- and George Simmers (‘Tomorrow and tomo-rrow and tomorrow,/ Creep on these petty tales from day to day) impressed. The prizewinners pocket £30 each. The bonus fiver goes to W.J. Webster for a touching soliloquy from EastEnders’ Dot Branning.
 

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