Upstart Crow
David Mitchell says he feels for beleaguered Will Shakespeare as Upstart Crow returns…
Wednesday / BBC2
David Mitchell always gets me chuckling and he makes a brilliant William Shakespeare in this riotous sitcom, back for its third series. Look out for a star turn from Kenneth Branagh, too.
NEW comedy Upstart Crow Wednesday / bbc2 / 8.30Pm
As Ben Elton’s irreverent Shakespearean sitcom Upstart Crow returns for a third series, there’s no let-up in the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that beset the unfortunate Bard, who’s played by Peep Show star David Mitchell.
In the first episode, as Will struggles for inspiration while penning his latest work, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his nearest and dearest – including wife Anne (Liza Tarbuck) and father John (Harry Enfield) – continue to mock him about his receding hairline and that his ‘comedies’ just aren’t funny.
TV Times caught up with David, 44, to find out more…
This series is one of the best things Ben Elton has written… I don’t think Ben gets the credit he deserves. He’s written Blackadder and The Young Ones – I mean, that’s more than anyone has a right to expect! In Upstart Crow, Shakespeare has the classic ‘sitcom dad’ struggles… One of the recurring themes in the show is that his life was a practical struggle. He’s trying to make it in a new profession and he wasn’t a toff.
Quite a lot of people, including the actor Mark Rylance, say there is significant doubt over whether Shakespeare wrote his plays… That’s why, in one episode, Ben has included a Mark Rylance tribute character played by Ben Miller. He’s an actor called Wolf Hall [named after the 2015 period drama in which Mark starred as Thomas Cromwell], who denies that Shakespeare has written his plays.
I’m not an actor who steeps himself in a role…
I wear a great bald cap, which saves me having to do any acting. But, having played Shakespeare, I feel for him. He did well in his lifetime, but no one back then called him a genius. They didn’t have the respect for literature then that we have now.
Upstart Crow IS PREVIEWED on pages 64-65