| The Upstart Crow | |
|---|---|
 Poster from the original London production | |
| Written by | Ben Elton |
| Date premiered | 7 February 2020 |
| Place premiered | Gielgud Theatre, London |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Setting | 1605, London |
The Upstart Crow is a stage play by Ben Elton developed from his BBC TV sitcom Upstart Crow .
The play, directed by Sean Foley, began previews at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End on 7 February 2020, with an official opening night on 17 February. This was David Mitchell's stage debut. [1] [2] The play was intended to run until 25 April 2020, but only ran up to mid-March, with the remainder cancelled as a result of restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [3]
The play reopened in the West End at the Apollo Theatre for a ten-week season from 23 September until 3 December 2022, with Mitchell and Gemma Whelan reprising the roles of William Shakespeare and Kate.
The main cast or the Original London production included many who featured in the TV series, amongst them: [4]
| Character | London (2020) | London (2022) |
|---|---|---|
| William Shakespeare | David Mitchell | |
| Kate | Gemma Whelan | |
| Susanna Shakespeare | Helen Monks | |
| Ned Bottom | Rob Rouse | |
| Richard Burbage | Steve Speirs | Stewart Wright |
| Dr. John Hall | Mark Heap | John Gordon Sinclair |
| Arragon | Jason Callender | |
| Desiree | Rachel Summers | Gloria Onitri |
| Judith | Danielle Phillips | |
| Dancing Bear / Cover | Reice Weathers | |
| Cover | Andrew Hodges | |
| Cover | Dedun Omole | |
| Cover | Annabel Smith | |
The play is set in 1605, with William Shakespeare depressed after the death of his son Hamnet, and needing to write a successful play to maintain his position. Ben Elton calls it "an entirely original excursion, not a 'TV adaption'". [5]
The plot was summarised by the Evening Standard critic Nick Curtis: "Shakespeare gets over writer’s block by nicking ideas from other people. His landlady’s daughter, wannabe actress Kate gives him the plot of King Lear . A pair of noble Egyptian twins recall Twelfth Night — as does the humiliation-by-codpiece of Mark Heap’s lovestruck puritan — and also spark the idea for Othello ." [6]
The play was well received by critics. Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian : "Punchlines and slapstick are meticulously timed, culminating in a spectacular sight-gag involving costumes...including a bear suit, an unfeasibly large codpiece and an escalatingly testicular pair of the baggy-thighed trousers. Although some of the new Puritans who police our own culture may find the latter too broad, the mix of bawdy and scholarly references is authentically Shakespearean." [7] In the Daily Telegraph , Dominic Cavendish wrote, "Ben Elton has restored himself to favour in theatreland with this joyously silly spin-off to his much-loved BBC Shakespeare sitcom." [2] Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard called it, "funny but exhausting", and said: "You can spot the mile-off joke about The Winter’s Tale the moment the dancing bear appears." [8]
| Year | Award Ceremony | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Laurence Olivier Awards | Best Entertainment or Comedy Play | Nominated | |
Benjamin Charles Elton is a British comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 17 novels and written the musicals The Beautiful Game (2000), We Will Rock You (2002), Tonight's the Night (2003), and Love Never Dies (2010), the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and crime genres.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
All Is True is a 2018 British fictional historical film directed by Kenneth Branagh and written by Ben Elton. It stars Branagh as playwright William Shakespeare. The film takes its title from an alternative name for Shakespeare's play Henry VIII.
Imogen Stubbs is an English actress and writer.
David James Stuart Mitchell is a British comedian, actor, and writer.
Paula Wilcox is an English actress. She played Chrissy Plummer in the ITV sitcom Man About The House from 1973 to 1976, and also had roles in TV shows such as The Lovers, Miss Jones and Son, The Queen’s Nose, The Smoking Room, Emmerdale, Mount Pleasant, Boomers, Upstart Crow and Girlfriends.
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, playwright, and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards, and three Tony Awards. In 2016, he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 he was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
Hamnet Shakespeare was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died aged 11. Some Shakespearean scholars speculate on the relationship between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet, as well as on possible connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night.
Rory Michael Kinnear is an English actor. He won two Olivier Awards, both at the National Theatre, in 2008 for his portrayal of Sir Fopling Flutter in The Man of Mode, and for playing the William Shakespeare villain Iago in Othello in 2014.
Sean Foley is a British director, writer, comedian and actor. Following early success as part of the comedy double act The Right Size and their long-running stage show The Play What I Wrote, Foley has more recently become a director, including of several West End comedy productions. In 2019, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Noma Dumezweni is a South African-British actress. In 2006, she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her performance as Ruth Younger in A Raisin in the Sun at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. In 2017, she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Hermione Granger in the original West End run of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; she reprised the role for the show's original Broadway run and, in 2018, was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
John Patrick Vivian Flynn is a British actor and singer-songwriter. He has starred as Dylan Witter in the Channel 4 and Netflix television sitcom Lovesick, and portrayed David Bowie in the film Stardust.
Jamie Lloyd is a British director, best known for his work with his eponymous theatre company. He is known for his modern minimalism and expressionist directorial style. He is a proponent of affordable theatre for young and diverse audiences, and has been praised as "redefining West End theatre". The Daily Telegraph critic Dominic Cavendish wrote of Lloyd, "Few directors have Lloyd’s ability to transport us to the upper echelons of theatrical pleasure."
Ian Gelder is a British actor. He is known for his numerous stage and screen roles, including Mr Dekker in Torchwood: Children of Earth and Kevan Lannister in Game of Thrones.
James Charles Dacre is a British theatre, opera and film director and producer. He was artistic director of Royal & Derngate Theatres in Northampton from 2013-2023 and prior to that held Associate Director roles at The New Vic Theatre, Theatre503 and The National Youth Theatre.
Gemma Elizabeth Whelan is an English actress and comedian known for portraying Yara Greyjoy in the HBO fantasy-drama series Game of Thrones. She also plays Kate in all seasons of the comedy Upstart Crow, Detective Eunice Noon on the first season of The End of the F***ing World on Channel 4, and Geraldine on the third season of Killing Eve.
Upstart Crow is a British sitcom based on the life of William Shakespeare written by Ben Elton. The show premiered on 9 May 2016 on BBC Two as part of the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Its title quotes "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers", a critique of Shakespeare by his rival Robert Greene in the latter's Groats-Worth of Wit.
Helen Monks is an English writer, actress and comedian. She is best known for her roles in Raised by Wolves, Upstart Crow, The Archers, Holby City, The Last Kingdom, Genius, and Inside No. 9.
"A Shakespearean Baseball Game", subtitled "A Comedy of Errors, Hits and Runs", is a sketch by the Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster. First performed on television in 1958 and slightly revised in 1971 and 1977, the sketch depicts a fictional baseball game with the manager, players, and umpires all speaking in Shakespearean verse. The dialogue parodies lines from the plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Richard III while referencing modern baseball culture. It became Wayne and Shuster's signature sketch, and both its television and radio recordings have been preserved as significant works.
The Motive and the Cue is a play written by Jack Thorne. The production opened, directed by Sam Mendes premiered on 21 April 2023 at the National Theatre in London. The play revolves around the history behind the 1964 Broadway modern-dress production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet starring Richard Burton in a production directed by Sir John Gielgud. As rehearsals progress, two ages of theatre collide and the collaboration between actor and director soon threatens to unravel. The original cast includes Johnny Flynn as Burton, Mark Gatiss as Gielgud, and Tuppence Middleton as Elizabeth Taylor.