You’re bard! A history of censorship

...Or why the jokes in Shakespeare are shit, by Becky Fury

Don’t like cancel culture? Be grateful you didn’t live in Britain in the 17th Century when the Puritan-led Parliament cancelled culture entirely.

Dancing was banned, as was Christmas and all theatres were closed on the basis that they were hotbeds of ‘lascivious mirth and levity’, which was apparently a bad thing.

Before this unfortunate glitch in the history of British culture, lascivious mirth and levity levels were monitored by an official who worked directly for the monarch; The Master of Revels. And it is likely that this officious killjoy is responsible for the fact that Shakespearean plays contain a lot of rubbish jokes.

Unlike today, there was limited recorded material, so, once the Master of Revels had read through what was presented as the play, as long as it contained no inappropriate religious or political ‘sedition’, the play would be passed for performance and that’s where the real performance would begin….

The 17th Century Globe Theatre was likely much like any office where an inspection is carried out today; everyone is on their best behaviour whilst the inspectors are present, but once they’re gone the real fun begins. The Shakespearean players could then begin to delight audiences with their trade craft: satire, outrageous improvised comedy and slagging off the monarch.

The censorship laws of the period demanded no religious or political sedition, but the 17th Century South Bank, however, was a hotbed of treasonous tavern talk and seditious activities. Whoring, drinking and bear-bating were the order of the day and if the theatre wished to compete with these dopamine spiking entertainments, they’d have to offer something a little more outrageous than the type of Shakespeare play we have evidence of today.

It should be noted that it is an understandable limitation of conservative history that it only functions within the parameters of knowable facts. That it Is constructed from information that is present rather than deduced from information that isn't… but when theorising about a mercurial folk art like 17th Century comedy, you need to work counter to conventional wisdom in order to catch glimpses of the ghosts of the past plying their comedic craft.

There is, for example, something about the comic ‘play within a play within a play’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that hints that something other than what is officially written down in the folio took place in its place.

Was this section really just simplistic jokes about amateur performers misunderstanding their craft by dressing as a moon and a wall, or was it an opportunity for those players, portraying ‘uncouth tradespersons’ to express uncouth tradespersons’ opinions, for which the respectable theatre management could not be held fully responsible, much to the drunken delight of the rowdy audience at The Globe.

Was this section an opportunity to, perhaps, insert more populist comic performance into the play, some illegal satire maybe, to tempt the punters from the bearbaiting and brothels and into the rough house of the theatre.

A further nod to the notion that the comedic content of the play was rather more seditious than we have evidence for exists in Puck’s final ‘if we shadows have offended…’, speech to the audience of The Dream.

What is he apologising for? Why might the theatre goers be offended? And what mercurial comic magic was really conjured by those ‘rude mechanicals’ in the depths of an enchanted Athenian forest that didn’t make it into that final folio.

Also, there are numerous jokes recorded in Shakespeare, most of them not particularly funny. An example of one of these is in Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2

Hamlet: May I lie my head upon your lap.
Ophelia: Ay, my lord.
Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.

In case you didn’t even spot the joke. It’s a very weak pun on the word cunt. A weak pun that really isn’t up to standard for someone who is considered to be the greatest English playwright that ever lived.

So why is this? Is it because Shakespeare was a rubbish joke writer or was it because he didn’t actually write the jokes that were performed?

Is this section a fragment of an entire impro section which was basically an excuse to shout the word cunt and keep the attention of the rowdy rough-house crowd. A section which couldn’t be scripted because of censorship regulations and also which didn’t need to be scripted because it was improvised comic performance

The country matters section could possibly have continued as follows, maybe taking suggestions from the bawdy, drunken groundlings standing in front of the stage.

Ophelia: Would you like to CUNT the number of fingers on my hand my lord"
Hamlet: I have no interest in that game. But verily there no acCUNTing for taste"
Ophelia: Are we back to CUNTry matters again my lord…

Basically the sort of nonsense comedy business that still delights late night audiences and infuriates censors 400 years later.

Or maybe it was an opportunity to engage in a bawdy comic sex scene, especially as the law at the time meant both characters were played by men. Again, it would likely be this type of lewd comic interlude the audience paid money to see, rather than a boring play about a morose Danish king who takes himself too seriously.

It’s impossible to know what really went on but, improvising a mischievous speculative theory about the true nature of Shakespearean comedy is likely in keeping with the salacious spirit of 17th Century London. Also, the fact that this type of literary sedition would infuriate some very serious Shakespearean scholars is also likely in the authentic anti-authoritarian spirit of the plays themselves

For some reason, some Shakespearean scholars get very offended if it is suggested that what we know today as the works of Shakespeare, could have been partially improvised or were in some way a collaborative effort, in much the same vein as believers in one God get if you suggest their might be no God, or many.

So, if you were offended by the speculations in this article, in the words of Shakespeare's mercurial mischief-maker, the androgyne wood sprite Puck, ‘Go fuck yourself’

Although I think Shakespeare himself scripted that sentiment so it sounded a bit more polite and to sneak it past the censors….

Before they did a little more crowd work and then went to the pub

Becky Fury