Book Note (Short Story Note, Really): "Dead in Deptford"

Aird, Catherine. "Dead in Deptford." In Playing Dead: Short Stories in Honor of Simon Brett by Members of the Detection Club. Edited by Martin Edwards. Severn House, 2025. 133–40.

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The short story "Dead in Depford" is, for me, doubly tangential: It's tangentially connected to Shakespeare, and it's tangentially connected to mystery and detective fiction.

The plot involves a group—or club, really—of retired police officers who gather to talk about all sorts of things. In this instance, they're discussing the death of Christopher Marlowe in 1593. Our main character claims to have solved the mystery of his murder.

Therein lie both the tangents. Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare (who is dismissively mentioned on page 135); that's the first. The second is that the mystery of Marlowe's death isn't addressed in any particularly definitive "detective story" manner. The "solution" isn't terribly interesting, nor is it genuinely based in any sort of detection from the facts of the case.

Indeed, it all comes down to one simple—and not terribly convincing or compelling—idea about Marlowe's death. Note: It isn't a conspiracy-theory solution. That's all.

The story attempt to overcome this defect by breaking up what could be one paragraph with interruptions and reactions from the other retired police officers. That's amusing, but it doesn't manage to elevate the story significantly.

Here are a few pages to give you an idea:

Although I do like the individual characterization worked in throughout, there's just not much here.

But feel free to discuss this in the comments!

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An Elementary Error about Shakespeare's Signature in Elementary?

“Pushing Buttons.” By Jeffrey Paul King. Perf. Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu Jon Michael Hill, and Aidan Quinn. Dir. Christine Moore. Elementary. Season 6, episode 3. CBS. 14 May, 2018. DVD. Paramount, 2019.

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Recently, it's all about the mysteries, isn't it?

Shakespeare has made his way into the modernized Sherlock Holmes show Elementary before (for which, q.v.), and that by way of a relatively-obscure quotation.

Here, Shakespeare appears by way of example in claim is about the relative values of signatures:

But I'm not sure that's accurate. The show says that there are fifty-one authenticated signatures of Button Gwinnett. There are six Shakespeare signatures extant (seven, if you count the one on the Folger Shakespeare Library's copy of William Lambarde’s Archaionomia). I've done some searching, and I can't find anything about any of those being sold as a signature of Shakespeare's (the sixth was discovered in 1909, and, had it been sold around that date, it would have likely sold for considerably less than it would today). Note: Please let me know in the comments if I'm overlooking something.

But there are records of Gwinnett's signature being sold at auction: One sold at Christie's in 2002 for $270,000 (with free shipping, I see); another sold for $722,500 at Sotheby’s in 2010 (this may be the signature Elementary is referencing, though they've rounded up considerably—or else the show's stated price includes shipping costs).

In a sense, then, Sherlock's claim is correct. Button Gwinnett's signatures have sold for more than any one of Shakespeare's. 

But imagine that an eighth Shakespeare signature were discovered and authenticated. Even though I acknowledge that my bias leans more toward Shakespeare than toward obscure Revolutionary War figures, don't you imagine that one of eight highly-sought-after signatures would fetch more than one of fifty-one?

Sherlock knows a lot about what he knows about—types of tobacco ash, types of municipal gravel—but when it comes to knowledge about his own national poet, I think he misses the mark.

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Book Note: Bullets for Macbeth

Kaye, Marvin. Bullets for Macbeth. Saturday Review Press / E. P. Dutton & Company, 1976.

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Alert readers will have noticed an uptick in posts on Shakespeare-related mysteries on Bardfilm. I've been working on a possibility for a new course on mystery and detective fiction, and, as is my modus operandi, I've been exploring ways to incorporate Shakespeare into the course.

I'll certainly have James Thurber's "Macbeth Murder Mystery" (for which, q.v.) as a reading early in the course, and I'm thinking of assigning Ngaio Marsh's Death at the Dolphin (for which, q.v.)  as the novel representing her work—it may not be her best work, but it's representative, and it's better than Light Thickens (for which, q.v.).

But I also want to branch out and explore some mysteries I haven't read. Bullets for Macbeth is unlikely to make the main list, but it might serve as a choice for a supplementary novel. It has its flaws (the relationship between the two main characters seems generic and forced), but it's quite compelling and, at least for the Shakespeare scholar, it falls into the "genuine page-turner" category.

The first interesting twist is that our two detectives, while falling clearly into the classification "Private Investigators," aren't actually PIs. Gene, our narrator, has an investigator's license, but he's actually working as an assistant to Hilary Quayle, who runs a Public Relations firm but has an affinity for detective work.

The second is that the mystery's plot depends on the scholarly debate over the identity of the Third Murderer (which is also a key point in Thurber's short story). The director has a theory about who Shakespeare would have intended to double that role, but he won't reveal it to anyone until opening night—and the actor isn't called on to play the role until the dress rehearsal. And I'm not giving much of a spoiler to say that that's when the murder occurs.

If you know who the Third Murderer is, you know who the mystery's murder is.

Let me give you a fair bit of Chapter Two so you can see how this starts to play out:

That's more than I normally provide in a post, but it provides a very good sense of how the novel works.

I do recommend the novel. It's relatively short and quite compelling. And the overal solution is quite clever and convincing.

But that doesn't mean that I agree with the director's argument about which character in the play doubles as Third Murderer.

Feel free to join the conversation in the comments—unlike this post, they are not a spoiler-free zone.

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The Winter's Tale in (of all things) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2; or, Serendipitous Shakespeare

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Dir. Sanaa Hamri. Perf. America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, and Blake Lively. 2008. DVD. Warner, 2008

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I regularly visit two "Free Books" shelves. One is at my local library and the other is in the hallway outside my office. I keep an eye on them both, and though I don't often find anything for myself, I occasionally move books from the one to the other if I think they'll find a more appreciative audience in the other venue. 

Yesterday, I grabbed a few DVDs from the library, including a double feature of The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Scarlet Letter, which must be from the "Films with the word 'Scarlet' in their titles" collection (the next volume probably has A Study in Scarlet and The Scarlet and the Black). I also spotted The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (it really was free—that $1 sticker must have been left over from a garage sale) and remembered a footnote or a list or something that mentioned Shakespeare in it. I took that film, too, just on speculation.

Having neither the time nor the inclination to watch the whole film, I did some quick searching and was surprised to learn that it involved a production of The Winter's Tale. Scanning through the film, I was surprised to learn that it had more than just a token Shakespeare scene. One of the four members of the Sisterhood was unexpectedly cast as Perdita. Here are the relevant scenes:

It's certainly far more the incidental, despite the obligatory Romeo and Juliet quote and the obligatory Julius Caesar joke. Lacking, as noted, the time or inclination to watch the whole film, I find I also lack the patience. But I did divine that the uneven nature of Perdita's performance is due to her uncertainty over whether Florizel genuinely loves her, her mother's going into labour during rehearsals, and the backstabbing by the blonde "friend" who is cast as Dorcas. In reading through various plot summaries of the film, I don't think the plot of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 mirrors the plot of The Winter's Tale in any significant way. Perhaps those of you who have had the time, inclination, and patience to see the film in its entirety can let us know in the comments whether there's something more!

In the meantime, I'll quote from Claudio Carvalho, who wrote the Storyline section of the IMDB entry for the film, so that you all can rest easy about the ending of the film: "In the end, the girlfriends discover that their friendship is real and amounts to more than just a pair of jeans."

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Links: The Film at IMDB. The Film at Wikipedia.

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Book Note: A Bunch of Amateurs

Hislop, Ian, and Nick Newman. A Bunch of Amateurs. Samuel French Ltd., 2017

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Most of you are alert readers; therefore, most of you know about the film A Bunch of Amateurs (for which, q.v.). But you may not know that a script was produced after the film—and that it's not the shooting script for the play or a screenplay or a novelization. Rather, it's a play in its own right. It covers the plot of the play and uses its characters and some of its dialogue, but it's a play designed for (perhaps amateur, perhaps not) performance.

Although you are an alert reader, the details of the plot may have escaped your memory for a bit. Jefferson Steel, an aging action / adventure actor, is convinced to go to England to perform the part of King Lear in Stratford. But he's not told that the Stratford he's going to isn't -upon-Avon. It's actually Stratford St. John. And the company isn't the RSC. It's a group (or bunch, if you prefer) of amateur actors.

The play spends a lot of good time developing the relationship between Jefferson Steele and his daughter Jessica, a relationship that mirrors those of King Lear and his daughters. Indeed, the film rather economically conflates all three of Lear’s daughters into the character Jessica.

Here's a quick sample of that. We're not too far in, but far enough that Jefferson has determined to give Lear a try. His daughter (who dislikes and mistrusts him) has reluctantly agreed to read lines with him—and perhaps take on the role of Cordelia:

I'm including this scene from later in the play mainly because of the beautiful exchange between Jefferson and the paparazzi:

Timed properly, that "Give us a more interesting quote" could bring down the house.

The play, even apart from the film, is quite good. And, like I Hate Hamlet (for which, q.v.), I'd love to see a production of it. Let me know when you're staging it—I'll try my best to be there!

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Book Note (Short Story Note, Really): "The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet"

Starrell, Vincent. "The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet."In The Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Loren D. Estleman. Tyrus Books, 2014. 87–107.

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If Samuel Johnson's Shakespearean gumshoeing failed to impress (for which, q.v.), perhaps a Shakespeare mystery with Sherlock Holmes would fare better.

But that's mere speculation—the canon of Holmes stories, though containing quotations from an allusions to Shakespeare (the most notable being Sherlock's "The game's afoot" quote from Henry V), don't involve Shakespeare in their mysteries.

But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death didn't stop others from taking his most famous character on a host of other adventures. Vincent Starrell is one of those who have tried their hands at Sherlocking.

His "The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet" involves the theft of the one copy of the earliest quarto of Hamlet: The 1602. For those of you keeping track, Q1 of Hamlet was printed in 1603; Q2 came in 1604–1605. That would make this quarto Q0, I suppose.

Not only is it the earliest possible Hamlet, it's also inscribed and signed by the author. It's delightful to imagine such a remarkable find, as these opening pages of the story don't hesitate to contemplate:

The rules of Fair Use (both governmental and in terms of avoiding spoilers) prevent me from providing more, but the mystery story was much more satisfactory than the one with Dr. Johnson.

As with most pastiches, this one makes Watson a bit less astute than he is in the canon while making Holmes' powers of deduction a bit more fantastic. But the story invents an intriguing artifact and carries the mystery through to its conclusion in a fairly adept manner. 

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Book Note (Short Story Note, Really): "The Missing Shakespeare Manuscript"

de la Torre, Lillian. "The Missing Shakespeare Manuscript." In Golden Age Bibliomysteries, edited by Otto Penzler. Penzler Publishers, 2023. 162–92.

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As I'm sure you also do, I was spending some idle time checking the "Shakespeare" entries in various reference works. While doing so, I came across an entry for a short Shakespeare-releated mystery story that looked interesting. Lillian de la Torre's "The Missing Shakespeare Manuscript" is set during the time of the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769 and involves the imagined staging of Caractacus; or, the British Hero, a previously-lost Shakespeare play. And the famous Dr. Johnson serves the role of detective.

"Lead me to it, governor," I said, and requested the 2023 volume Golden Age Bibliomysteries, where it's been anthologized (it was first published in 1946) .  

I'm writing this post for two reasons. First, now that classes and grading are nearly over for the semester, I hope to follow the general principle "Write about the Shakespeare you encounter as quickly as possible." Second, I'd like to advise you not to bother with this one.

The story is written with a lot of pseudo-eighteenth-century (and extremely affected) language modeled on James Boswell's Life of Johnson (Boswell here serves as Watson to Johnson's Holmes). I knew I was in trouble two pages in.

And the entire narrative doesn't hold together. The reasons for the manuscript's absence just don't work. And even if it did, it's narrated in such a clunky way as to make it much more tedious than enjoyable.

Here are the first few pages as an example of what we're faced with in this story:

I'm trying to be meticulous in not providing spoilers, but if anyone would like to talk about the details of the story, let's do so in the comments, away from those who would rather not know.

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Incidental Julius Caesar in the Scottish Episode of VeggieTales

MacLarry and the Stinky Cheese Battle. Dir. Mike Nawrocki. Perf. Mike Nawrocki, Phil Vischer, Henry Haggard, Jim Poole, Cydney Trent, and Brian Roberts. 2013. DVD. Big Idea Recorded (B.I. Owned), 2013.

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Assuming that you've all read all of Bardfilm, I know that you know about the VeggieTales Hamlet (for which, q.v.).

Since that was fairly interesting, I was excited when someone mentioned MacLarry and the Stinky Cheese Battle. And that excitement grew when I saw the kilts and rough medieval costumes on the cover of the DVD. "What will they make of Macbeth?" I thought. "Will Lady Macsparagus have trouble getting tomato juice off her [admittedly non-existent] hands?"

Alas, although there are plenty of references to Scots and Scotland (and many Scottish accents), I found nothing that connected to Shakespeare's Scottish play—not even in "Silly Songs with MacLarry" (actually titled "Silly Songs with Scottish Larry") where it might have been most appropriate.

Instead, I found a quote from Julius Caesar (for inexplicable reasons, the key conflict is between the Romans and the Scots). Here it is:

There you have it: "Friends, Romans, Country fans," together with a very Kenneth Branaghesque visual annotation of each of those categories—wrapped up with a vegetable joke. It's not much, but it's at least something!

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

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Shakespeare (Mostly Incidental) in How I Met Your Mother

“Milk.” By Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Charlene Amoia, America Olivo, Carter Bays, and Craig Thomas. Dir. Pamela Fryman. How I Met Your Mother. Season 1, episode 21. CBS. 8 May 2006. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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“Benefits.” By Kourtney Kang. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, and Kim Kardashian. Dir. Kourtney Kang. How I Met Your Mother. Season 4, episode 12. CBS. 12 January 2009. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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“The Exploding Meatball Sub.” By Stephen Lloyd. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, and Jennifer Morrison. Dir. Pamela Fryman. How I Met Your Mother. Season 6, episode 20. CBS. 11 April 2011. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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“The Stinson Missile Crisis.” By Kourtney Kang. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alyson Hannigan. Dir. Pamela Fryman. How I Met Your Mother. Season 7, episode 4. CBS. 3 October 2011. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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“The Broath.” By Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alyson Hannigan. Dir. Pamela Fryman. How I Met Your Mother. Season 7, episode 19. CBS. 19 March 2012. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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“Bedtime Stories.” By Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Christopher Darga, and Michael C. Mahon. Dir. Pamela Fryman. How I Met Your Mother. Season 9, episode 11. CBS. 25 November 2013. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2018.

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Thanks are due to ShakespeareGeek for calling my attention to some of these incidental Shakespeare references in the long-running sit-com How I Met Your Mother. I found the others on my own through doggedly watching my way through the show, which I had heard of when it was being aired but never seen before.

Now that I've finished the entire run of the show, it's time to review the Shakespeare it offers. For other shows, I might have posted six separate posts, but I found myself not having too much to say about any one of these on its own. The great Kenneth Rothwell, in his classification of Shakespeare derivatives (for which, q.v.), has a category called "Parasitical." Works in that group "will exploit Shakespeare for embellishment, and / or graft brief visual or verbal quotations onto an otherwise unrelated scenario” (209). Although How I Met Your Mother certainly uses Shakespeare in this way, I feel that its intention isn't the negligible or manipulative one implied in Rothwell's "Parasitical" grouping. Indeed, it seems to ask for an additional category, and I propose "Incidental Shakespeare."

I found How I Met Your Mother to be very cleverly written (and to contain at least one very annoying, very objectionable character, but that's by the way), and its use of Shakespeare is both casual—the way Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane simply have Shakespeare as part of their everyday vocabulary) and obscure. They're not trying to raise the tone of the show by throwing a Shakespeare sop to the Cerberus of Shakespeare aficionados; it's just naturally a part of the cleverness of the writing and of the characters.

Here, then, are the relevant Shakespeare allusions in How I Met Your Mother compiled in the clip below. I'll offer a bit of context first, and then you may enjoy them all the more. Note: None of these contain major spoilers, but there may be some minor ones. Continue at your own risk.

The first Shakespeare reference comes in a Season One episode entitled "Milk." Barney (the annoying, objectionable character alluded to earlier) has concocted an elaborate pick-up line that involves hiring actors to play the role of paramedics. The Shakespeare comes when he mentions the play they're doing locally: Troilus and Cressida. It's not one of the most well-known plays, and perhaps the joke is all the funnier for that. Note: The men playing the paramedics are also the writers credited on this episode.

In "Benefits," Marshall struggles to overcome his reluctance and embarrassment about using the bathroom at work. When he's achieved that end, he's commended by Kim Kardashian (appearing on the cover of his magazine) with a quote from Shakespeare: "Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful." Again, this is marvelously obscure. It's a line spoken by the Duke in Measure for Measure (for those of you keeping track, it's Act III, scene i, line 208). Note: The clip below has a typo in the episode number—it should be episode 12, not episode 2. Needing space on my hard drive, I had already erased the files before starting this post, and recreating it all from scratch would have been overwhelmingly onerous. I apologize.

The issue raised in "The Exploding Meatball Sub" is near and dear to the work Bardfilm does. Ted and his then-girlfriend Zoe are arguing over whether a film is a derivative of a Shakespeare play or of some other classic work of literature. I'll let you watch that one for the details and the humorous reveal. Note: Despite some internet chatter on the subject, the Shakespeare play in question is not Hamlet.

By the time we get to "The Stinson Missile Crisis," we have learned that (minor spoiler) Marshall and Lily are having a baby. Ted very much wants to be on "Team Baby," and he can't recognize that, in this as (possibly) in other ways, he's a third wheel to Lily and Marshall. In his defense, he offers famous trios that wouldn't be the same without the third element: "Salt and Pepper and Cumin" is one; "Romeo and Juliet and the Apothecary" is another. Note: I've extended this clip a bit beyond the mere Shakespeare because I admire the work that went into the Famous Trio Halloween Costumes.

And then we have "The Broath," whose title is a play on the idea of a "Bro Code" that men are supposed to follow. Playing on the same idea, we get a bit of Julius Caesar.

Finally, we get one Shakespeare quote in a Dr. Seuss-like poem that Marshall is telling (minor spoiler) his baby to keep him quiet on a long bus ride. There's nothing wrong with a little Henry V . . . and, yes, that is Lin-Manuel Miranda. Note: I've let this one go on beyond the Shakespeare to show him and to wrap up the rhyme scheme.

With all that in mind, give all those Shakespeare references a try:

Perhaps "Incidental Shakespeare" isn't quite right either. "Pervasive Shakespeare" might fit better. 

But whatever you call it, it shows that Shakespeare is still useful and relevant.

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Links: The Series on IMDB.

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George Haggerty's Hamburger Hamlet

Hamburger Hamlet. Dir. George Haggerty. Perf. Stacy Keach and Harris Yulin. 1975. DVD. Screen Edg, 2017.

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I found this film listed in a bibliography somewhere, and I managed to convince my library to purchase it.

George Haggerty's avant-garde film is something of a visualization of Jorge Luis Borges' short story "Everything and Nothing" (for which, q.v.). The narration of the film is from Borges' brief, poetical, biographical sketch of Shakespeare's life. It ends with a suddenly-disenchanted Shakespeare giving up acting and writing and retiring—yet, even in retirement, he is unable not to play a part.

Haggerty's envisioning of Borges' idea can be found in its title: "Hamburger" stands for pop culture, commercial enterprise (the literal marketing campaigns of the 1970s), and low-brow entertainment; "Hamlet" stands for high art, pretentious culture, and even (I imagine) avant-garde films like Hamburger Hamlet. 

The plot seems to take us through a day in the life of a modern Shakespeare. We follow an actor (who is made to look roughly like various portraits of Shakespeare) as he watched TV, goes grocery shopping, and puts on a production of Hamlet in which he plays Hamlet. But we only see him in the dressing room between scenes.

I've extracted a bit from the film to give you an idea of how Haggerty works with his source material:

I'm very fond of how, Tom Stoppard–like, we see the part of a production of Hamlet we don't ordinarily see. I also like the wind-up skull and how that image of the departed Yorick becomes replicated and duplicated in the cars on an LA freeway—especially the VW Beetles of that era, which look remarkably like wind-up Yorick skulls. And I appreciate the way Borges' words are overwritten by 1970s advertisements.

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

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Book Note: Much Ado About Numbers

Eastaway, Rob. Much Ado About Numbers. The Experiment, 2024

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I received this book for Christmas, and I read it almost immediately. In addition to indicating how far behind I am in my Book Notes, that also indicates the book's staying power—it remains clear in my memory even after so many months.

The book contains examples of how Shakespeare uses numbers, and that's interesting enough, but of particular interest to me was how maths was developing under Shakespeare's very eyes.

For example, here's an exploration of how the digit "cypher" (we might call it "zero") was coming into use in Europe during Shakespeare's life:

I also found a couple of charts in the book very useful. Here are the relative values of coins mentioned in Shakespeare's works:

And here's something I made a stab at (and then abandoned as being hopelessly complicated and uncertain) in my graduate student days: 

I'm a Shakespeare fan, not a mathematician, but the mathematical concepts and the Shakespeare were very well presented. Whichever way your interests lie (or if, like ShakespeareGeek, they lie in both camps), this book will be fascinating and valuable to you.

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