INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A loose codpiece, tight doublet, and a warm place to evacuate one's bowels.

What is your greatest fear?
Being Tangoed.

With which historical figure do you most identify?
Me.

Which living person do you most admire and why?
Andrew Lloyd Webber. His writing displays a degree of sophistication that I can only dream of.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The inability to write a catchy tune.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Mewling and puking.

What has been your most embarrasing moment?
Titus Andronicus.

What vehicles do you own?
A cart, a horse, and a Chevy 4x4 Blazer.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Sushi.

What objects do you always carry with you?
Quill, parchment and a Travelcard (zones 1&2)

Where would you like to live?
Milton Keynes.

What makes you depressed?
That damned spot.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My bald pate, but I am experimenting with combing my hair over from the back.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Decomposing.

What is your favorite smell?
Napalm in the morning.

What is your favorite word?
"Schwantz!" (although a close runner-up is "Uma")

What is your favorite building?
Elephant and Castle Shopping Center

What is your favorite journey?
Exit pursued by a bear.

What is your favorite book?
The Complete Works of Me.

What is your favorite fantasy?
Me, W.H., and the Dark Lady naked on a desert island with a faerie.

How did you vote in the last election?
For James 1.

How will you vote in the next election?
I will be dead and therefore ineligible to vote.

Should the Royal Family be scrapped?
Tis a consumnation devoutly to be wished

Do you believe in capital punishment?
First thing we do is kill all the lawyers.

For what cause would you die?
Old age.

Do you believe in monogamy?
Let there be no more marriages (particularly if your wife lets your brother stick poison in your ear and then marries your son's uncle.)

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Sushi.

Which living person do you most despise and why?
Alan Ayckbourn, because his comedies are funnier than mine. Ask anybody.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Brevity.

Have you ever said "I love you" without meaning it?
No, but I've said "I mean it" without loving you.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Thee" and "thou", "forsooth", "verily", and "Hey Nonny Nonny".

What is your greatest regret?
Titus Andronicus.

When and where were you happiest?
In my salad day, when I was green in judgement (with a Hey Nonny Nonny)

How do you relax?
Prozac.

How often do you have sex?
Whenever I can squeeze it in.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Command of the double-entendre.

What would your motto be?
Veni, Vidi, Dormivi!

What keeps you awake at night?
The smell of the chamber pot.

How would you like to die?
With flights of angels singing me to my rest.

Do you believe in life after death?
Obviously, since this questionnaire is clearly ghostwritten.

How would you like to be remembered?
The man who make Kenneth Branagh what he is today.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Put money in thy purse.

Copyright The Guardian
Saturday 30th March 1996
Spiritual channeling courtesy of The Reduced Shakespeare Company.