- 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: You are aware that Egypt is in Africa, Mr. Shakespeare? I mean, I only ask since I happen to know you think Verona is a port and Bohemia has a coast.
- 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]
- Robert Greene: Step aside will I a moment and speak my innermost thoughts, which by strict convention cannot be heard.
- Otello: Such a feast, Mr. Greene. Would I were like the men with six mouths whom first I saw upon the island of Bollockapus.
- Kit Marlowe: Yeah.
- Otello: For then would I have five more gaping gobs in which to stuff the tuck.
- 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!
- Kate: Caught up in my new book. Sir Walter Raleigh's latest biggie, 'The Discovery of the Large, Rich and beautiful Empire of Guyana, With the Relation of the Great and Golden City of Minoa, brackets, Which the Spaniards Call El Dorado, closed brackets'.
- Bottom: Catchy title.
- Kate: Isn't it? I just can't get enough of these thrilling accounts of adventure and discovery. Queued all night for this one. Got it signed, too. Which, incidentally, Sir Walter charged for, which I though was a bit off considering wihout us he'd be nothing.
- 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'.
- Otello: Why, in the country of Crapatonia there be so much pepper that the natives converse only in sneezes. And their eyes do water so, the plains are often flooded with tears.
- 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.