October, 2004

Ffan Stories
William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Parodied by Jon Brierley

The Soliloquy (as ad-libbed by Bertie Wooster *):

Well, I am dashed if I know whether I can go on like this or not.
I mean, is it better, do you think, to put up with being plagued by Aunts, and what not,
Or to put up a bit of a fight, and stop the whole bally lot?
A chap could do with a nice long lie-in,
At least if by that you mean put a stop to all the nonsense and bother you seem to get nowadays.
It'd be jolly nice, I think!
Well, so long as you don't get nightmares, I suppose.
I daresay it's the thought of dreaming about Aunt Agatha forever
That makes chaps like me carry on the way we do.
I mean, who would stand for this tosh -
You know, being oppressed by elderly females,
Having butlers look down their nose at you,
Getting the brush-off from Madeline Basset
(Even if she does think the stars are God's daisy-chain),
Getting thirty days without the option
Just for relieving a policeman of his helmet on Boat Race night,
And getting a pi-jaw from the magistrate,
Not to mention the underhanded behaviour of Bingo Little at the Drones last week -
If you could get out of it as easily as that?
I mean, I don't actually have to work for a living,
But it beats me why chaps do,
Bearing fardels and what have you
(What is a fardel? Jeeves would know)
If it wasn't for the dashed inconvenient fact that if you get off the bus, so to speak,
You don't know what stop you'll be at.
It's not as if anyone ever gets on again.
Tricky things, consciences, and liable to turn you bright yellow
When faced with the choice of carrying on or jumping off into goodness knows what.
I mean, I'm as resolute as the next man, and not given to thinking much,
But even I wobble a bit when up against that kind of thing,
And tend to dither and bug my eyes out (they tell me) and achieve very little, really.
- Stop a minute, Ophelia's coming! What-ho!!

Hamlet (as penned by Samuel Beckett**):

There was a ghost once. I'm sure there was a ghost.
It might have been my father, it might have been,
It might have known, did I know my father like my father knew Lloyd George?
Was there a death? There was a death. I remember that.
Poison in the ear, or so the ghost said.
Do ghosts speak? I think I thought this one did.
Porpentines were mentioned;
Aye, honour the breeches and keep the observance.
And my mother, my mother, yes, she was the one who knew Uncle Claudius,
Oh yes, she knew him and I knew that she knew that I knew what she knew.
Mother knows best. For that relief, much thanks.
There was skulduggery, I know,
For I saw the skull being dug, over here my son, the head on me,
Aye, he that lay upon my lap as I had lain - or is that a lie?
Gottle of geer, that's a bad joke, even for a gravedigger.
Ha! Rosemary! I remember now; she went to a nunnery,
Or was it the slap of leather on willow aslant a brook?
Four for thirty-five for Ireland I took, but they made me give it back.
Alas, I knew a lass, and alas that she knew me.
Fair enough, for a nymph, I suppose.
Shall I go on? Call this going, call this on?
To go on and on and on, but they didn't let her did they, they made her stop.
Can I go on? This is it, this the question,
Should I stay or should I go, aye, there's the clash.
London called me, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, or are they,
I don't know, perhaps I should czech.
There was an arras, I recall - do you remember an arras, Miranda, do you remember...
The stabbing and the poloney and the baloney and borrowing and lending
And this is a hawk, look you,
But that is a handsaw, unless it is a dagger I see before me.
But that was in another country, and beside, the Bench have fled.
Mad, am I? We'll see who's mad, don't get mad get even,
Even the odds and even then it's all six to four against.
What was I waiting for? I don't know, but it never came.
A play - there's a thing - a poor thing, sir, but mine own,
A trap for mice to catch a rat,
Aye, trip over your own tongue, you old bastard.
Poison my ears with your talk, and see if I shan't poison you back.
How do you like that, Mother?
Mother? Can you hear me, Mother?
There's gertitude for you.
Well, I shall have to press on until you holler uncle, Uncle, and then what?
A hit, a palpable hit, and I'll give it five, but I didn't like the beat.
And then we were all beat, and the rest really should be silence, and Norwegians,
But here I am, still going on.
Still going, still on.
Play me some music now;
I want a cigar.