Bill

There are years in Shakespeare's life that nobody knows about; a gap between his leaving Stratford and his appearing in London as a playwright. The film fills that gap. Bill plays the lute and is thrown out of his band. He tells his wife he will be a musician in London and sets off. Nobody in London wants him. He falls in with a theatre company and starts writing. Meanwhile the King of Spain is making a plan to kill the Queen of England, and at the centre of the plan is a theatrical performance. The two stories meet on the same stage. Richard Bracewell directs. Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas and Jim Howick are in the cast. It is a British production. The company who wrote and played it come from the television series Horrible Histories; the same team went on working together. Six actors share every part in the film; each plays more than one character. The humour rests on anachronism; characters in period costume speak the language of today. The narrative builds Shakespeare not as a genius but as a useless and stubborn man. It was made on a low budget and the sets are deliberately simple. The jokes refer to English history and to the plays; some of them are lost in translation. Its limit is rhythm; the density of jokes is high but not all of them land, and the middle sags. Who it is for: viewers who like British comedy and historical parody. Who it is not for: the jokes are local, the production small, and the ending rushed.