Shakespearean Flash - 'An Offer To Refuse' By Charlotte Donnelly

The summons spilled across the worktop in a mess of blood and entrails. She stared at it for a moment and then reached out for a drink, bypassing the rapidly cooling tea and reaching for something stronger. The message was clear; yet another job, yet another prophecy designed to trick some poor fool.

She swallowed the whisky and winced at the burn, remembering their first job - all those centuries before. The look of defeat on his face when he'd worked it all out! At the time, cruel warmth had curled around her heart. Now, she simply sighed and put her glass down on the counter.

Another glass and the warmth began to ease her bones. Why they couldn't just call was beyond her. They were still stuck in the past - with the smoke, the chanting, the whole get-up… She squinted and tilted her head, staring at what had once been her goat. There was change there. There was the possibility of a nice life.

She nodded decisively to herself and stood, sweeping the entrails into the trash as she set to carving up the goat. The deck would be consulted later and no doubt they'd come looking for her, but she'd be ready.

A glance at the fire had it roaring, the noise competing with the thunder overhead. So much for meeting in the rain! She laughed to herself, the witch, putting the meat in the freezer and washing her hands, clearing the side. A fresh cup of tea was made and she sipped it delicately.

The knock came at the door. One-two-three. She finished her tea, put down the cup and walked over to it, opening the door wide. The two witches glared at her from under bedraggled, rain-soaked hats.

She smiled. "Fancy a cuppa?"

The first, who had been about to open her mouth, stopped. They glanced at each other, almost uncertain.

"Uh, alright," the other said quietly.

She let them in and they sat in the warm kitchen, catching up on what they had been doing in the interim. The prophecy could wait forever. It couldn't be that important.

Shakespearean Flash - 'Trevor’s Tempest' By Rob Walton

Get the youth theatre to put on The Tempest at the same time as the Royal Shakespeare Company is in town. Whose idea was this? Get some RSC actors to watch rehearsals and get local telly to film it. Whose idea was that? Get me to give a slightly (slightly!) wooden interpretation of Prospero - but audible right at the back and word-perfect. Get my mate Trevor to play Caliban, get my mate Dave to play Ariel and get my mate Miranda to play Miranda (yes, really!).

Get Dave who plays Ariel to wear some sort of loincloth and be covered in make-up, only not the proper stuff from a theatrical supplier, but something that Trevor had found in a drawer in his dad’s garage. This make-up later made it harder to work out what had happened. Tracy, who applied it, didn’t pursue cosmetics or theatre as a profession.

Get Trevor to sort out Dave-as-Ariel’s landing gear for when he does the spirited flying through the air, off a platform and on to the mattress behind the set. Only not a fancy mattress of maybe a metre thickness, but one found in Trevor’s dad’s garage-of-plenty, off their Elaine’s bed – taken out of her room when she moved in with him who was always reading the Collected Works at the corner table in the snug (all right, maybe not always, but at least once).

So the mattress wasn’t much cop – especially because Dave, who was Ariel, didn’t know Trevor’s sister Elaine had moved back in to their parents’, gone to the Civic Theatre, took her double mattress back and swapped it for a single – which she’d nicked out the house of William (him from the snug). Dave/Ariel took off, winking at Tracy and thinking of the after-show party, before landing, noisily, on a bit of stage which wasn’t mattress. There was lots of blood, but it was hard to tell with Trevor and Tracy’s home-made make-up confusing matters.

Trevor came in for a lot of stick and frankly got a bit savage about it all. Fists were thrown, went flying. The RSC people laughed and the local telly made a half-hour documentary.

Shakespearean Flash - 'Much Ado about Nothing' By Brendan Way

It was a typical day in Heaven: Einstein was besting Mother Teresa at chess, Abraham Lincoln was practicing pulling rabbits out of his stovepipe hat, and Florence Nightingale was bothering Shakespeare.

'William, William, they're at it again!'

The bard sighed. It really was useless trying to ignore her.

'Fine, Flo, you have my attention. What are they doing to my plays this time?'

'Oh, you won't believe it. It's terrible.'

'Try me.'

'What?'

'You know, try me. Tell me the worst of it. What are they’re doing that’s so wrong?'

'Oh. Well, for starters, you know Hamlet?'

'What, my five act tragedy in which everyone dies? No, never heard of it.'

'Eh?'

'Of course I know Hamlet! God knows I've played the part often enough - and He does know! He's complimented me on it on many occasions...'

'Will, focus!'

'Ah, sorry. What have they done with Hamlet?'

'Stoppard's only gone and written it from the view of two peripheral characters.'

'Has he now? What a splendidly clever idea. Well done him.'

'But - but-'

'Is that all?'

'Oh, no sir. I wish that it was. You see, Disney's also turned it into a cartoon.'

'A car-'

'A set of moving pictures.'

'Brilliant! Again, an excellent idea.'

'What?'

'Sure, gets the kids interested in me early. Ensures they’ll look me up later.'

'No, right, of course. That's not the worse one though, sir!'

'I didn't think it was. Okay, what's the text?'

'Romeo and Juliet.'

'Ah, my tale of star-crossed lovers whom fate has conspired to -'

'They've turned it into a musical.'

'They've what?'

'It's now a finger-snapping song and dance show with the odd fight scene thrown in.'

‘A musical.’

‘Yes, sir.’

'Are you freaking kidding me? A musica - That won't do at all… Churchill, hand me my gun.’

‘Wait, what – where are you going?’

‘To show some actors the real meaning of tragedy. Come on.'

Shakespearean Flash - 'Factotum' By Francis Hayes

Homesick; he never expected that. Staring at the paper in front of him, he wills himself to start writing. His thoughts keep returning to Stratford, to Anne, his children.

He bangs his hand down on the table. The pen falls from the ink pot scattering a parabola of drops across the paper.

Unfair; he came to London to escape the distraction of a young family, his wife’s concern for appearances, his parents worries that he could not turn his hand to a respectable trade.

Given the contempt in which actors were held it should have been easy to get work; at least he wished to follow the profession, unlike so many who were actors. But Londoners of even the lowest station gave themselves such airs. Only by persistence, turning his hand to any job that needed doing, starting by holding the horses of the gentry attending the plays, had he established himself as part of the company.In time. when it came to finding someone to step into a breach there was, ‘Will knows the line,’ and even when the play did not work, ‘How might we show this, Will?’

Often he had wished he might have gone with Sidney to Flanders, with Raleigh’s company to the Americas, sailed under Drake; what grand adventures those would be to write about. But he had no patron and no wish to be a foot-soldier, a copper smelter, a sailor. He wanted to write, to present the drama of life. So he had contented himself with the writings of the ancients, histories, the tales brought to London by sailors from all over Europe, his imaginings of the lives of the men and women he saw everyday.

And now that he has been asked to write of the internecine strife of the last century, now he can explore the characters of Henry of Lancaster and Crook-back Dick, he is assailed by thoughts of his family in Warwickshire.

Head in hands he studies the pattern of ink spots on the paper then, thinking of Anne, he picks up the pen to write,‘Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman's hide.’

Shakespearean Flash - 'Omlet (soliloquy): To beed or not to beed' By Joy Manne

To beed or not to beed, that is the question

Whether it is nobler in the pan to suffer

The twists and spites of vicious spatula

Or to fight against the cook

And by opposing him, to ruin, to flow no more; and solidifying, to congeal, to end

The heart-ache of unfulfilled ooze, those thousand natural shocks unconsummated

chickens are heir to. Tis a revenge devoutly to be wished. To ruin the texture,

to gel and to congeal: Ay, there’s the problem

for in the flow of life, what future may yet come,

once we have pecked out of our confining shell,

and wait for the respect

that gives a future to so short a life;

For why should we bear the whips and scorns of time:

The old hen, the rooster now out-roosted by the young;

The pangs of despised age, the butcher’s short delay,

The rough insults of the chicken-herd,

Being chased, and gathered up, and housed and forced to lay

When we could find release by rushing to

The fox’s sharp white teeth. Why bear the burden,

The scratching scraping work of bio free range

Through dread of after death becoming nuggets

In the yet to be discovered country of McDonalds

From whence no eater ever returns well; we do not understand

And so prefer the suffering we know

To that we only imagine

Thus confusion makes us cowards

Our brilliant feathers pale

the other makes the choice; we live or die, we’re egg or chicken.

We’ve thought it out too far

and now we don’t know what to do.

Very well then, let us flow and be unctuous

Let us flatter him

Just out of his hot nest of lust

Carousing before breakfast, making her an omlet

Or is it her lunch, or supper, or dinner

Are they feeding like a king or queen?

To beed or not to beed

That is the question

Shall we be consumed

or thrown away.

Shakespearean Flash - 'A Heart Shaped Hole' By Angela Readman

If music be the food of love, play on- William Shakespeare

Music really was the food of our love, a canapé. My guitar leaned against the wall.

‘Do you play?’ Cassidy said.

The guitar looked embarrassed. Pink with a heart-shaped hole, I’d bought it for this girl who wrote little songs about wheelie bins. She sang like a bird in a coalmine. She needed heart-shaped things. When she left, I was stuck with it.

‘Play something,’ Cassidy said, looking for her shoes.

I didn’t want to, but it was better than getting into the guitar story. So, I played, the song from Watership Down, not that well. Cassidy got back in bed. We did things like rabbits.

~

Music was the big fat midnight snack of our love. Cassidy woke me in the middle of the night. Shaking my shoulder, she whispered.

‘Play something for me.’

‘ What? Now?’

I looked at the clock, ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘Pleeeeze.’

She handed me the guitar. I took a tortoise shaped toothpick out my pyjama pocket. My fingers were sleepwalkers. She didn’t care what I played, so long I did. The song over, she looked full, happy as someone taking a nap after a good meal. ‘I love you,’ she said.

~

Music was the cheapo chocolates hastily bought at the garage of our love.

Cassidy stood with her arms folded as I walked in the door.

‘I want to talk to you,’ she said.

I picked up my guitar and played Elvis, badly, I even sang Wooden Heart. She met my eye, laughed and looked loved up. For a second, while she was laughing she looked scared, as if she didn't know how to stop.

~

Music was the anorexia of love.

‘You’re lucky,’ Cassidy said.

‘I am.’

At least it wasn’t the right hand, everyone said. That's something. It is. There’s worse accidents. People get used to more than losing a hand, like being hungry, waking up in the middle of the night for no reason, or looking at someone’s face and wondering where love went. That’s how it was, like eating and eating and never being full up, once I couldn’t play that guitar.

_

Shakespearean Flash - 'Romeo and Juliet' By Alan Crossan (And William Shakespeare)

JULIET: Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

ROMEO: I told ye I wis going doon the pub wi ma mates to watch the fitba. The Hoops versus Verona in the Europa league... Oh unlucky wee man, great effort son.

JULIET: What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;

ROMEO: Whit wis that? Look I cannae hear ye. Its bouncing in here. I’ll gie ye a phone back in a bit eh? Haud on... Aye mate another pint will do nicely... Hello. Are ye still there?

JULIET: My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words. Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

ROMEO: Yaaasssss!

JULIET: If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.

ROMEO: Ya beauty whit a goal!

JULIET: Romance is...

ROMEO: I’m sorry I need to go. My battery is just about....

ROMEO & JULIET: Dead