‘Let the Devil Wear Black’: Shakespeare’s Bio-fictional Presence in Good Omens
Last week, after its initial distribution on Amazon Prime in 2019, the first episode of Good Omens aired on BBC Two. The television series, penned by fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, is a six-part adaptation of Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s co-authored fantasy novel Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990). It drew particular attention and fan anticipation when announced thanks to the casting of two of Britain’s most likeable and versatile actors in the lead roles as the odd-couple Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon: Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
Not only have each appeared in successful fantasy franchises prior to this — Sheen in Twilight and Underworld, Tennant in Doctor Who and Harry Potter — but both are also stalwarts of the British stage. Their proximity in age — Sheen (50) and Tennant (48) — and similar casting profiles as chameleonic character actors with leading man looks who are known for diverse accent work, mean that they have also appeared in the some of the same roles at relatively similar stages in their careers. Both, for instance, have played Romeo, Look Back in Anger’s Jimmy Porter — a role often connected by critics to Hamlet — and the Prince of Denmark himself.
‘Hard Times’, the third episode of Good Omens, begins with a twenty-eight minute long cold open, which takes a breather from the series’ central plot line of an angel and demon attempting to prevent Armageddon, to introduce the viewer to their relationship in greater detail. In a style reminiscent of the vastly inferior opening sequence to Gavin Hood’s meritless superhero film X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Aziraphale and Crowley are dropped into various historical events and settings. Appositely, they begin at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, participate in the French Revolution and meet on the medieval battlefield in a scene which pays tribute to the timeless Black Knight of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
The most meta-theatrical mini-scene to which the viewer is treated is undoubtedly the third, in which we find angel and demon in 1601, standing in the yard of the Globe Theatre. An afternoon rehearsal of Hamlet is underway, with a youthful Richard Burbage (Adam Colbourne) delivering the title character’s most famous soliloquy and William Shakespeare (Reece Shearsmith) looking on. Although the four-minute scene mainly concerns Aziraphale and Crowley’s whispered conversation about the perils of an angel and demon in collaborating, they share a brief conversation with the playwright when he approaches and asks, “could you, in your role as the audience… give us more to work with?”[1] Crowley has already remarked to his angelic colleague that he expected them to be conspicuous at the Globe due to the presumed presence of an audience when, in actual fact, they appear to be the only people in attendance other than the actors and a fruit seller. He attributes this, with a weary groan, to Hamlet being “one of Shakespeare’s gloomy ones”.[2]
Remarks such as these, where a fictional character passes comment on the playwright in a sardonic register, are designed to appeal to audiences keen to see Shakespeare brought down to size. This is a “Shakespop” [3] tradition with its roots in the nineteenth-century Shakespearean burlesques popular both sides of the Atlantic. In Andrew Halliday’s Romeo and Juliet Burlesque; or the Cup of Cold Poison (1859), for instance, Juliet’s Nurse remonstrates with Shakespeare about his dislike at being parodied, stating “[y]ou wrote burlesques yourself, and well you know it”[4]. The legacy of these comic inversions and compressions of the playwright’s work can be glimpsed in Shakespeare’s meta-theatrical appearances within Horrible Histories and the original cast’s feature-length Shakespearean bio-fiction staple, Bill (2015).
Aziraphale and Crowley’s respective reactions to Shakespeare’s request for them to become more participatory reflects their difference as both diametrically opposed supernatural beings and the men who they have become during their time amongst mortals on Earth. The high-spirited angel, played by Sheen with exquisite British politeness, takes Shakespeare at his word and immediately throws himself into this new self-aware role of audience member. In a joke which again troubles the highbrow/lowbrow binary that has dogged much discourse about the evolution of Shakespop during the twentieth-century, Aziraphale excitedly enquires whether “when the Ghost of his father came on and I said ‘he’s behind you’”[5] was a suitable example of Shakespeare’s requested involvement.
By referencing the well-known audience response to the moment when a villain approaches an inexplicably unaware hero, Gaiman playfully equates one of Shakespeare’s most revered tragedies with the conventions of a pantomime. This inverts the tragic entrance of the Ghost by suggesting that the stalking appearance of this phantasm is absurdly funny rather than psychologically terrifying, thereby allowing for Aziraphale’s misplaced enthusiasm to deliver this uninformed, comic interruption. Shakespeare’s measured response of “just so. That was jolly helpful”,[6] underscores Gaiman’s intention in this short exchange, by having the playwright approve of this pantomime-esque ritual and thereby throwing subtle shade at audiences, actors and critics who have placed the Sweet Swan of Avon on his rarefied pedestal.
Crowley responds rather differently. Burbage presses on and Aziraphale, after having misinterpreted Hamlet’s “to be, or not to be — that is the question” (3.1.55) as a Q&A opportunity by exclaiming “not to be! Come on Hamlet, buck up”,[6] turns to his friend to garner his opinion. Prompted by the angel’s assertion that Burbage is “very good”,[8] Crowley wryly comments that “age does not wither, nor custom stale his infinite variety”.[9] The camera flicks back to Shakespeare, who nods approvingly and quietly says to himself, “yeah, I like that”.[10] Thereafter, the scene turns back to the angel and demon discussing the future of their partnership but not before this meta moment has had its lasting impact.
It might appear to be nothing more than another bio-fictional instance of Shakespeare being cannibalistically fed his own lines before he had written by them. Examples abound in Upstart Crow and are found elsewhere on screen in Shakespeare in Love (1998), Bill and Will (2017). However, the combination of actor (Tennant) and location (The Globe Theatre) specifically code this particular interaction in layers of intertextual adaptation. Crowley’s comment, which arguably refers to both the timelessness of Shakespeare’s verse and Burbage’s youthful beauty, is a paraphrased version of perhaps the most famous lines of Antony and Cleopatra: the reflection on the Egyptian queen by Enobarbus that “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety” (2.2.245–6).
In addition to the frisson of watching two past Hamlets witness the original performance of the role in the presence of its author, the act of a character played by Tennant delivering Shakespearean lines which are overheard and appropriated by the playwright himself echoes a running joke made throughout ‘The Shakespeare Code’, a 2006 episode of the long-running sci-fi television series Doctor Who. The time-travelling Doctor (played by Tennant, in the Tenth incarnation of the character) visits 1599 London — just two years ahead of Aziraphale and Crawley — with his companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). There they meet Shakespeare (here portrayed by Dean Lennox Kelly) and successfully thwart a plot for world domination by three Witch-like Carrionites.
Throughout the episode, the Doctor drops lines drawn from the playwright’s work in his presence — all from plays which were written after 1599 — without Shakespeare realising. That is until he quotes King Henry V’s famous rallying cry of “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” (3.1.1), when the trio mount their defence prior the episode’s climax, and the playwright finally catches him out, calling “I like that. Wait, that’s one of mine”[11] after the retreating Time Lord. This choice of play makes sense in terms of the plot’s timeline, given that Henry V was reputed to have been written around 1599 and entered the Station’s Register in 1600.
Similarly, in ‘Hard Times’, Crowley quotes a play which will not be written until between 1606–7. Gaiman, who has written two episodes in the modern era of Doctor Who, and had previously incorporated both Shakespeare’s life and the plots of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest into the plot of his comic book The Sandman (1988), is unlikely to have been oblivious to this previous Tennant-starring instance of Elizabethan sci-fi bio-fiction. The Scottish actor performs Crawley in the same received pronunciation accent as his most popular characters in prior fantasy appearances, from his heroic Doctor to his diabolic baddies, Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Kilgrave in Jessica Jones (2015–19). The blend of actor, accent, theatrical location and literal Shakespearean appropriation combines to make this a satisfying moment of televisual meta-fiction conjured by Gaiman and, more significantly, an implicit comment by Tennant on his status as a contemporary icon of “Shakespop”.
[1] Douglas Mackinnon (dir.), ‘Hard Times’, Good Omens (Amazon Studios / BBC Studios, 2019).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Douglas Lanier, Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 5.
[4] Andrew Halliday, Romeo and Juliet Burlesque; or the Cup of Cold Poison (London: Thomas Hailes Lacy, n.d. British Library Add Mss 52,986 G, 1859) p. 39.
[5] Douglas Mackinnon (dir.), ‘Hard Times’, Good Omens (Amazon Studios / BBC Studios, 2019).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Charles Palmer (dir.) ‘The Shakespeare Code’, Doctor Who (BBC, 2007).
