Ronnie Barker’s Hamlet

A few years ago I transcribed Ronnie Barker’s retelling of Hamlet from an old BBC cassette because I think it’s a riot; and, more even than Fork ‘andles and the Mastermind sketch, really shows off what a truly brilliant wordsmith he was.

It seems to be in a kind of extended or ornamented Hudibrastic rhyme, which ought itself to be used much more often as it’s fun, full of brilliant enjambments and startling feminine rhymes. Samuel Butler’s Hudibras, an almost consistently hilarious tale of an errant knight, made me laugh far too loudly in a silent bookshop with strategic use of the word ‘bum’. This (Part II, Canto I, lines 115-156) is fantastic:

No sooner did the Knight perceive her,
But straight he fell into a fever,
Inflam’d all over with disgrace,
To be seen by her in such a place;
Which made him hang his head, and scoul,
And wink, and goggle like an owl.
He felt his brains begin to swim,
When thus the dame accosted him:
  This place (quoth she) they say’s enchanted,
And with delinquent spirits haunted,
[...]
But if our eyes are not false glasses,
That give a wrong account of faces,
That beard and I should be acquainted,
Before ‘twas conjur’d or enchanted;
For though it be disfigur’d somewhat,
As if ‘t had lately been in combat,
It did belong to a worthy Knight
Howe’er this goblin has come by’t.
  When Hudibras the Lady heard
Discoursing thus upon his beard,
And speak with such respect and honour,
Both of the beard and the beard’s owner,
He thought it best to set as good
A face upon it as he cou’d,
And thus he spoke: Lady, your bright
And radiant eyes are in the right:
The beard’s th’ identic beard you knew,
The same numerically true:
Nor is it worn by fiend or elf,
But its proprietor himself.
  O, heavens! quoth she, can that be true?
I do begin to fear ‘tis you:
Not by your individual whiskers,
But by your dialect and discourse…

… and so on. Barker decides to make this form even more intricately difficult with the introduction of internal rhyming (as I’ve written it down, the first half of every 2nd and 4th line).

—

Here, in its entirety, with a few possible errors in transcription, Hamlet — as read and (I’m assuming) re-written by Ronnie Barker:

In olden Scandinavia, when standards of behaviour
were rather lax, and Income Tax was tuppence in the ducat,
Denmark’s democratic king one day became a static king:
he went to rest; became non est — in fact, he kicked the bucket.

He had, it seems, been victimized. The reason for his quick demise
developed from a charming trick of brother Claud, the thug
who, while the king was sleeping sound, came silently a-creeping round
and dropped a deadly poison in the royal Danish lug.

Then to the Queen, a flirty gal, he whispered: “Listen, Gertie gal:
now I’m the king and everything, we might as well be one.
So, when we’ve had the funeral (or even rather sooner’ll
just suit me fine) — oh Gert, be mine!” Gert said: “It might be fun.”

The former king had had a lad called Hamlet, and a sadder lad
you never saw — a royal bore, an autocratic [?] dope.
In introspective reverie, he’d spend his day forever; he
could think of nothing better than to sit around and mope.

One night upon the battlement (or so the tittle-tattle went)
a ghost was seen in shades of green a-frightening the warders.
The sergeant, one Sebastian, said: “Blimey, ‘ere’s a nasty ‘un.
Go fetch the prince, this ‘ere’s against the current Standin’ Orders.”

When Hamlet came, the fear he’d had all vanished as his eerie dad
told how he’d died. Young Hamlet cried — and not without a wince —
“Put poison up your ear’ole, Dad? Then I’ll avenge you, dear old Dad!”
“Thank you kindly,” cried the phantom. “Not at all,” replied the prince.

“I’ll sham,” he said, “delirium, and worry ‘em and weary ‘em —
produce a play; and in this way, suspicion I’ll dispel.
He went too far. As soon as he decided on this lunacy,
the things he did quite soon got rid of half the personnel.

While in a boudoir, chatting there, he said he heard a rat in there.
Ignoring the demeanour of the queen a-looking on,
he shouted, “For a ducat, dead!”, right through the arras bucketèd
and stuck a yard of rapier through his mother’s best cretonne.

His statement was eroneous; he’d done for poor Polonius!
— who, embarrassed, from the arras tottered out and sadly said:
“First to make a rat of me, then puncture my anatomy!
Call this a lark?” — with which remark, he hit the carpet, dead.

Polonius a daughter had, who reckoned that she oughta had
have wed the prince some ages since — but all he did was mock her,
by saying, “Dear Ophelia, I really feel you merely are
a silly slut.” — a cruel cut, which sent her off her rocker.

She chanted snatches sundry, sighed, went out into the countryside,
and climbed some trees, still chanting glees, a little off the key.
Alas! an envious slither there dropped her into the river there;
and, quite serene, she last was seen, a-heading out to sea.

Her brother, name of Laertes, imagined he could slay at ease
young Hamlet, with a poisoned sword which Uncle Claud had lent him.
But Hamlet soon discerned the trick, plugged Laertes, and turned the trick —
then made a spring right at the King and rather badly bent him.

Meanwhile a jug of lemonade the King had with some venom made
caught Gertie’s eye; and, feeling dry, she drained the poisoned jug.
While Hamlet, still rhetorical, got rather allegorical,
some phrases coined, then quietly joined his mother on the rug.

And while the bodies dropped around, Horatio, who’d popped around
to see the end, and superintend, came through the palace doorway
with Fortinbras, and legions of hairy great Norwegians,
who trampled in with pomp and din and seized the throne for Norway.

The moral of this story, boys, is don’t be Death or Glory Boys —
don’t try to rule, or maybe you’ll find you’re apt to bungle.
Don’t bother with detection, lads. Just stick to introspection, lads;
be kind, be good — and if you would, try not to stab your uncle.