There’s no dearth of crisp, stylized comedies on British television and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag is not the only Brit sitcom worth watching. Comedian David Mitchell of Peep Show fame has been starring in the Ben Elton comedy Upstart Crow, which takes a cheeky look at William Shakespeare’s life and also uses old-timey parallels to poke fun at modern pop culture.
Upstart Crow also premiered on stage early this year at the Gielgud Theatre in West End, where the star cast reprised their roles. The show does a brilliant job of critiquing the flaws of both Elizabethan culture and the modern entertainment industry simultaneously.
Here are just a few reasons why Upstart Crow is absolutely unmissable when it comes to British comedies.
When The Bard Tried To Work From Home
It’s hilarious to think Shakespeare had the same troubles as quarantined millennials. In one of the episodes on season 1, Shakespeare has to put finishing touches to a play and acts it out with the help of his ever-devoted wife Anne. But his Stratford-Upon-Avon cottage is stuffy, to say the least, and the Bard doesn’t enjoy a lavish study area.
Therefore, Shakespeare makes do with the dining room where his grumpy teenage daughter is finishing her meal, and his annoying parents are weighing in on his play with their unsolicited advice, which makes for a hysterical scene.
When Shakespeare Tried Out Some of His Inventions
It can’t have been easy for the Bard to come up with so many new phrases and words, but coining new terms is substantially easier when you have a trusted test audience who are enthusiastic about giving feedback.
When Shakespeare tells his London housekeeper Bottom and his landlady's daughter Kate (Game of Thrones’ Gemma Whelan) about his new words, they are both brutally upfront about what they think of them. “In a nutshell? I mean you couldn’t get anything at all inside a nutshell, because they’re very small and also full of nut!” Bottom quips.
Were Sonnets the Elizabethan Facebook?
In one of the funniest sequences on the show, Shakespeare finishes his 150th sonnet and just can’t get enough of this new form of verse writing. He also tells Kate and Bottom that the sonnets are his ticket to immortality. The playwright believed that if he published these short, pithy poetry, they will cause a sensation among the youth.
“With publishing, kids have instant entertainment in their puffling pants! You see them hanging around them together hunched over a 14-line Iambic pentameter, transfixed like zombies. Not interacting socially. Get off your book of sonnets, parents will cry over the land, you will develop a hunch!” quipped the bard.
The Bard’s Dislike For The London Commute System
For those familiar with David Mitchell’s brand of comedy, they will know that the show bears satirical elements of Mitchell ranting about daily life, which is something he does very well. In fact, observational comedy has been Mitchell’s strongest forte.
One of the sharpest sequences on Upstart Crow is when the Bard rants about his weekend commute from London to Avon; there are obviously very strong parallels with London’s underground subway rides. Mitchell basically takes his modern urban experiences and applies Elizabethan details into his observations, which makes for the funniest content.
When The Show Emphasized The Need For More Auditorium Toilets
When Burbage and company draw up a map for the iconic Globe Theatre, they conceive a 20-yard trench for the men to do their business and a shed with a bucket for the female audiences. Kate, who is dressed as a male playwright, tries to explain why they need more women washrooms especially during the heavy rush of intervals.
The scene is sleek because for contemporary audiences it obviously brings to mind the long lines outside any stadium/auditorium bathrooms. However, the comedy in this particular bit was planned neatly as not to make the modern comparison too obvious.
Shakespeare, The Cool Dad
Shakespeare is expected to be at his son’s Latin recital but rants about the fact that he has a life, and wonders why schools can’t see that parents can exist independent of their children. The conversation between Shakespeare and Anne takes a dig at modern parenting culture where every minor accomplishment made by a child has to be appreciated loudly and publicly by parents.
“What is it with modern youth that they canst not kick an inflated pig’s bladder across a sporting field without both parents standing on the sidelines shouting ‘goodling job, poppet!” remarked the bard.
What Did Old Timey Catfishing Look Like?
For anyone wondering if catfishing existed before Myspace and Tinder, Upstart Crow showed exactly how catfishing was handled at Elizabethan courts. Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna wants to ask out a guy named Claude at a masquerade ball, but even with a mask on, she is too shy.
In response, Shakespeare devices a plan to mislead Claude into thinking Susanna was asking him out, whereas the job would be accomplished by someone else. Shakespeare asks Kate to put Susanna’s mask on and ask Claude at the ball. The entire sequence is, of course, set up like a retro demonstration of how catfishing has always been a part of dating culture.
The real-life Othello
Every time Mark Heap pops up on the show as the evil Robert Greene, the show gets a new lease of life. Heap is fantastic as Greene, he is unscrupulous, jealous of Shakespeare and will go to any length to see him fail. The show also tries to make its own conclusions as to how Shakespeare conceived his plays; for example, in season 2, the show featured a dashing African Prince named Otello who would obviously go on to be the Bard’s inspiration for his tragedy Othello.
Greene hysterically tries to drive a wedge between the prince and Shakespeare, which gives way to a hysterical comedy of errors full of relevant references.
When Kate Just Couldn’t Decide
Shakespeare’s theatre group had, of course, no role for a woman as they weren’t allowed to hold jobs. But the rebellious Kate always wanted to act and Shakespeare finally agrees to let her dress up as a man and fool his colleagues so she could act on stage. What followed was a hilariously long-winded sequence where Kate just couldn’t decide what to wear and what made her look skinnier.
“Kate you look very nice in those puffling pants, let’s go!” an exasperated Shakespeare tells Kate. “Yeah, as if, no I don’t. You’re obviously lying,” says Kate, still trying to decide. The whole scene features a stunning sense of contemporaneity.
Ricky, Is That You?
Fans were delighted when comedian Spencer Jones, who plays the Elizabethan clown named Will Kempe on Upstart Crow, revealed that Kempe was meant as an homage to Ricky Gervais’ The Office character, David Brent.
Kempe is a smug, pompous jester who is not too self-aware and often cracks jokes which fall flat. Fans have noted how closely Kempe’s mannerisms resemble Brent’s haughty sense of comedy. Kempe was also a leading jester during Shakespearean times and it would make sense to base him on a modern pop culture figure. In fact, the show also featured quite a few cheeky references to contemporary British comedy icons.