Upstart Crow (TV Series)

The Green-Eyed Monster (2017)

David Mitchell: Will

Quotes 

• Will Shakespeare : If fame itself be more important than the means by which it be got, then will there dawn a day in Albion where we simply watch a gaggle of inadequates sitting about in a house and call them famous?

  Kate : I think that could actually be quite an interesting social experiment.

  Will Shakespeare : It might start out that way, Kate, but it would soon degenerate into a fatuous game of who bonketh whom.

• Bottom : Manners maketh man, you know.

  Will Shakespeare : Very clever, Bottom. Shaming me with my own phrase.

  Bottom : 'Manners maketh man' is not your phrase, Mr. Shakespeare.

  Bottom : Isn't it? I think it is.

  Will Shakespeare : No, it isn't. It was first quoted by William Horman in his Latin textbook Vulgaria, published in 1549, forty-five years before you were born.

  Bottom : Well, perchance some naughty sprite didst pluck it from my brain, dance back through time to 1519 and whisper it in William Horman's ear at the very moment he was writing his Vulgaria.

• Kate : [speaks Latin]  Amor vincit Omnia.

  Will Shakespeare : Er, yes, hang on, I know this...

  Kate : Virgil, 'love conquers all'.

  Will Shakespeare : Love conquers all? Could have sworn that was one of mine. Virgil? Are you sure?

  Kate : Quite sure. Nearly two thousand years ago.

  Will Shakespeare : Right, so definitely out of copyright.

  [makes a note of it in his Occasional Book] 

• Will Shakespeare : I am the most divinely gifted poet in Christendom and yet, because I'm also the son of the dodgiest geezer in south Warwickshire, all the other snootish poets do laugh at me and call me the oik of Avon.

  John Shakespeare : [laughs out loud]  Brilliant!

• Bottom : Right, you lot! Tea's on table, so get fell to and get stuck in.

  Will Shakespeare : The phrase, Bottom, is 'Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served'.

• Will Shakespeare : But a black actor in a leading role? I think that's a few centuries off. A strong supporting character perhaps. An irascible chief of the watch or a wise old judge. Possibly the villain or the hero's best mate. But the lead? Not gonna hold my breath.