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.
How winter now doth creep into my bones;
My fingers stiffen and my eyes grow blear.
I have lived long enough: the flesh that holds
My soul in earthly bonds is wasted now;
My blood is whey and gives but little heat
To ward against the ever-closing cold.
Each night I count and count again my sins,
The stains that nothing in this life can cleanse.
Too often have I hid my eyes from truth
To give forgiveness where no right was mine.
And I too easily have lent my voice
As pipe and conduit for untested tales.
As I judged others so must I be judged
And bear the verdict on that final day.
But I stand ready now, abject, to face
My Lord and Maker and to hope for grace.
W.J. Webster
Joe Grundy:
Go bind thou up yon dangling wos-thur-names.
Eddie:
Put thou thy hose in it, o aged man.
Thou art forever…
Joe:
Would that it were so!
Alas, mine age devours my words, and leaves
vast voids of where-be-nothings, empty porringers
…
Clarrie:
Now hush, you twain.
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