Outsiders is a brand-new game show for Dave hosted by David Mitchell. David, says:
“Civilisation is clearly crumbling so it’s high time we worked out whether we can cope without it. And if you can think of a better way of doing that than making six comedians learn survival skills, then you weren’t involved in the development process of this programme.”
A very affectionate look at Upstart Crow by Chasqui Penguin.
Each episode has a theme, usually revolving around one of Will’s plays, and in this series of articles our aim is to give a little more background to those and the Upstart Crow storyline surrounding it, together with the facts, deliberate anachronisms, and the characters involved.
Series 2
Episode 6 – Sweet Sorrow
This final episode of Series 2 follows the course of the first ever episode by concentrating on Romeo and Juliet, from which the title Sweet Sorrow is taken, spoken by Juliet in Act 2, Sc 2. In the Upstart Crow introductory episode, Star Crossed Lovers,Will was at the writing stage of this play, and the episode storyline mirrored some of the famous parts of the play. However, in Sweet Sorrow, the writing of the play is nearing completion, with auditions, rehearsals and its stage debut the focal points. Romeo and Juliet is the only play which is integral to the plot of two Upstart Crow episodes.
Sweet Sorrow opens in Lucy’s tavern with Richard Burbage and Will Shakespeare discussing with Kit Marlowe the opening of their new theatre and the first performance of Romeo and Juliet. This is obviously a reference to The Globe which opened in 1599, though it is never mentioned by name in Upstart Crow.
The Globe was actually the brainchild of James Burbage, father of Richard. James was an actor, theatre entrepreneur and joiner who built and owned a London playhouse called The Theatre, situated north of the Thames. He planned to open another purpose-built playhouse on the south side of the river but, sadly, didn’t live to see his dream fulfilled, as he passed away in 1597. However, his two sons, Cuthbert and Richard, along with many in the Lord Chamberlain’s acting troupe, including Shakespeare, pushed ahead with its building, using materials from The Theatre, and in 1599 The Globe opened to paying audiences.
Site plan of The Theatre in Shoreditch – built in 1576
The Globe’s first staged production is thought to have been Julius Caesar. It definitely wasn’t Romeo and Juliet – known to have been performed by 1597, probably at The Theatre.
Richard Burbage in Upstart Crow is much older than the real actor would have been at the time, more the age of his father. Richard was born in January 1568, so was almost four years younger than Shakespeare. He took many of the lead roles in the plays of the day but was mainly famous for playing The Bard’s main male characters over the years.
In this Upstart Crow episode, Burbage mentions that his acting troupe is no longer part of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and they are in need of a patron. Kit suggests wealthy aristocrat Lord Southampton, even though, as Will points out, he dislikes the theatre, especially romantic comedies and historical plays. Kit then counters this with the idea of a romantic tragedy to ‘lure him in’. As this has never been done before, Will takes on the challenge, and his Romeo and Juliet fits the description perfectly.
In the Tudor era acting troupes were known as playing companies, and in reality the patron of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men at this time was Lord Hunsdon, who died in 1596. The playing company was then adopted by his son George Carey, the second Lord Hunsdon, and became known as Hunsdon’s Men. When he was appointed Lord Chamberlain in 1597, succeeding his father, the playing company reverted to its name of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and performed as such until after the accession of James I in 1603. The new monarch became its patron and following this it was known as The King’s Men.
Portrait of the 1st Baron Hunsdon by the artist Steven van Herwijck
There is no historical mention of Lord Southampton as patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men or the new theatre, though he was patron of the arts. He was also one of Shakespeare’s patrons, so not surprisingly was an enthusiastic theatre-goer. He is often considered to have been the mystery ‘Fair Youth’ to whom The Bard dedicated 126 sonnets.
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (Lord Southampton), one of Shakespeare’s patrons. The painting is attributed to John de Critz.
While speaking to Burbage and Kit, and to prove his ability to achieve something never done before, Will claims to have invented three original words that morning: multitudinous, new-fangled and scuffle. The origins and Shakespeare’s use of these words are as follows:
Multitudinous – first thought to have been used in 1603, with either Shakespeare or Nashe being the first to commit it to the written word. Shakespeare included it in Macbeth (Act 2, Sc 2), spoken by his title character:
The multitudinous seas incarnadine
Making the green one red
New-fangled – a 15th-century word, so definitely pre-dates Shakespeare and his writing of Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act 1, Sc 1) when Biron speaks these lines:
At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;
Scuffle – thought to have entered the English language as a verb around 1570, when Shakespeare was a child. However, he seems to be the first to have used it as a noun. This was in Antony and Cleopatra (Act 1, Sc 1)when spoken by Philo:
His captain’s heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles of his breast
In actuality, these words were probably in conversational use in Tudor times and not Shakespeare’s inventions, though he may have been the first to include them in written and published work.
Back at his lodgings, Upstart Crow Will is putting the finishing touches to the writing of Romeo andJuliet, which he is struggling with. Kate puts forward the phrase ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’, with Will then claiming she has read his thoughts, and he gives a similar response to Bottom’s suggestion of ‘morrow’ to compete the second line. These famous words are spoken by Juliet to Romeo in the balcony scene (Act 2, Sc 2):
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow
With Will still seeking more verbal descriptions for the balcony scene, Bottom recounts a childhood tale of when he would catch a sparrow or lark, and tie a silk thread to it as he could not bear to give the bird its freedom beyond the length of the thread. Kate thinks this describes very well Juliet not wanting Romeo to leave and then Will, while decrying Bottom’s animal cruelty, takes the story and converts it into lines spoken by Juliet to Romeo earlier in Act 2, Sc 2:
’Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone;
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty
Having finished writing his star-crossed lovers play, Will agrees that Kate can play the part of Juliet as she has read all this character’s lines perfectly and with feeling. However, as it is still illegal for women to act on stage, she must go to the audition disguised as a boy actor.
Will arrives at the playhouse to find Burbage and Condell rehearsing in the roles of Romeo and Juliet, reading from scripts. Knowing neither ageing actor is ideal, he tells them that it is only right they should play the title roles but the title has been changed to PrinceEscalus and the Nurse. This erroneous piece of information persuades both to accept these parts, leaving vacancies for the juvenile lovers. Burbage informs Will that Lord Southampton has agreed to attend the opening night of Romeo and Juliet and if he approves of the play, will grant the playing company his patronage. He also mentions a young actor called Augustine (Gussie) Snootyloin who has made a good impression at the nearby Curtain playhouse, as Isabella in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedie and could be considered for the role of the teenage ingénue, which Will agrees to while secretly planning to cast Kate.
The Spanish Tragedie by Thomas Kyd is believed to have been written between 1582 and 1592, though the date of its first performance is unknown. It is considered one of the first mature Elizabethan dramas, along with Tamburlaine theGreat by Christopher Marlowe. The latter had its London debut at the Rose Playhouse, probably in 1587 though it is thought Marlowe wrote it while a student at Cambridge University.
The title page of Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedie: or, Hieronimo is Mad Againe
Although in the rehearsal scene Burbage and Condell each hold a script, the reality is that in the late 16th century actors were not given scripts and had to learn only the lines for their roles. Whether they copied them from the original or just had to borrow the relevant pages and memorise the lines is not clear, and may have varied. This practice probably arose from the fact that most plays were not published till quite a while after they were initially performed – sometimes years later – and the task of writing out a script for each cast member would have been too time-consuming and costly. Despite these problems, most actors of the day played the same characters each time a play was performed and, with only a small amount of revision, were able to remember their lines in full. Understudies were unknown then, so if an actor could not appear, the play concerned was replaced by another, often previously performed. Therefore, actors had to be prepared to take on former roles at short notice, and many had a vast repertoire.
When Upstart Crow’s Robert Greene hears of Lord Southampton’s potential patronage he decides to sabotage the show. He is also aware that Gussie Snootyloin will be auditioning for the role of Juliet and invites him to his office for a chat, to outline his plans which hinge on Gussie securing the role. Gussie assures him he will get the part, and is persuaded by Greene to set fire to the theatre during the balcony scene in the first performance of Romeo and Juliet – for a generous fee. Gussie’s agreement has Greene thinking his plan to ruin Will is well on its way. His planned arson attack may be a reference to the fire which burned down The Globe in June 1613 when a cannon, an on-stage prop, accidentally misfired and set the theatre alight, thankfully with no casualties. However, it was after this that Shakespeare decided to retire from the theatre and writing and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.
As the episode progresses to the audition, Kempe is playing Romeo and the last two candidates for the leading female role are Gussie and Kate. Both are impressive but Condell is correctly convinced that one of the ‘boy actors’ is a girl, though he appears not to recognise her as Kate. However, her acting talent is evident and she is chosen for the part, leaving Gussie disappointed and a little bitter. He returns to see Greene, with news of this boy actor being a girl. Greene is delighted with this information and believes it will give him more ammunition to discredit Shakespeare and lose the acting company the patronage of Lord Southampton. When Greene denies him payment because he has made the mistake of not demanding his fee before revealing the news, Gussie switches allegiance to Will, as we see later.
One of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men/King’s Men was an actor called Augustine Phillips. Whether Gussie is based on him is unclear but Phillips was an adult by the time he joined the playing company and would not have been eligible to portray Juliet, though there are few details available of the roles he played during his career. However, he was one of The Globe’s shareholders, along with Shakespeare, the Burbage brothers and other actors in the company.
Rehearsals take place with Kate in the role of Juliet and Kempe as Romeo. He takes Juliet’s hand and speaks the following words to her in Act 1, Sc 5:
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss
Juliet replies with:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss
They place the palms of their hands together. Will is the only one who seems amused by his ‘highly amusing internal pun’, revolving around palmer being an archaic word for a pilgrim, as his joke falls flat among all present. However, he feels sure that over the centuries it will be all the more amusing to audiences as its meaning becomes more obscure! This has yet to be proved but it is accurate that, particularly during the Middle Ages, palmer was a word for a pilgrim who had returned home from the Holy Land with a palm branch. The word palmer has its origins in Old French.
There is a twist towards the end of the episode. The play is being staged at The Red Lion Theatre on the first night and Lord Southampton is in the audience, sometimes overcome with emotion and holding hands with Kit as the play unfolds! Kate is set to play her much-longed-for role but before the play begins Gussie arrives, no doubt with a well-thought-out ploy, and announces that Juliet is a girl. This convinces Greene, who is watching events with interest, that his plan will run smoothly. Will, upset that Kate is being denied her chance to play Juliet, feels there must be a way to overcome the problem. Once the play is under way Greene disrupts it by accusing Juliet of being a girl. However, there has been a last-minute change of cast, with Gussie playing Juliet, while Kate is Romeo. When Gussie is revealed as Juliet, Greene is frustrated. However, annoyed by the interruption of the ‘beautiful play’, Lord Southampton orders the guards to arrest Greene who is then escorted out, unaware that Kate is playing Romeo. So Gussie has got his revenge on Greene and eventually secured the role of Juliet – no doubt having suggested the change of cast – while Kate has achieved her ambition to be an actor. Kempe, on the other hand, is puzzled as to how he came to be locked in the privy!
In reality, the first performance of this play was probably staged at The Theatre, with Richard Burbage almost certainly portraying Romeo opposite young actor Robert Gough as Juliet. However, it is definite that the comedy role of Peter, the nurse’s servant, was played by Will Kempe. Although in Upstart Crow The Red Lion is always shown as the playhouse owned by Burbage, this was not the situation, as he owned The Theatre instead. The Red Lion was owned by John Brayne, James Burbage’s brother-in-law. It was built in 1567, making it the first purpose-built playhouse in London as far as is known. There is no indication that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men ever performed at The Red Lion which welcomed touring companies, whereas The Theatre had more permanent playing companies treading its boards.
The episode ends with Will hoping that in the future there will be lady actors on theatre stages, though Anne thinks they will have clichéd lines and be required to appear topless. However, she can’t believe Will’s view that they will not be paid the same as their male counterparts, regarding that likelihood as ‘just ridiculous’.
The next Facts List will focus on the first episode of Series 3, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, which revolves around A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the various characters in this play, from Puck to Lord Egeus. The three Christmas specials will be covered separately after Series 3.
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A very affectionate look at Upstart Crow by Chasqui Penguin
Each episode has a theme, usually revolving around one of Will’s plays, and in this series of articles our aim is to give a little more background to those and the Upstart Crow storyline surrounding it, together with the facts, deliberate anachronisms, and the characters involved.
Series 2
Episode 5 – Beware My Sting
This episode focuses on Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew,and for clarity this Facts List is divided into two parts – the first devoted to the play, the second to this Upstart Crow episode.
The Taming of the Shrew
This is a play within a play,thought to have been written by Shakespeare between 1590 and 1594 and first staged in 1593/94.
The ‘play within a play’ theme is not unique to Shakespeare who also used it in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The structure of The Taming of the Shrew revolves around a play performed in a nobleman’s house by a troupe of actors to entertain a drunken pedlar called Christopher Sly who is tricked into thinking he is a lord. When the play within finishes, he is left to sleep off his state of inebriation.
In the context of this play, a shrew is an unpleasant, argumentative woman and this description is applied to Katherine (sometimes Katherina or Kate) who fills the title role.
The words ‘Beware my sting’ form part of the reply Katherine gives to Petruchio when he calls her a wasp in Act 2, Scene 1:
Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp, i’faith you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then to pluck it out.
Although The Taming of the Shrew constitutes a major part of this Upstart Crow episode, it is not fully mirrored in the storyline, and below is a very brief synopsis of this play:
Baptista, the wealthy father of two sisters, is keen for both his daughters to marry. Bianca is a quiet, amiable girl with three suitors, including Lucentio, but her elder sister Katherine is the opposite as she is a headstrong, determined and contrary young woman who, her father believes, will never attract a husband. He asks Lucentio if he can find a man who will marry Katherine. Along comes Lucentio’s friend Petruchio who expresses his desire to marry Katherine, even though she shows no interest in him, but he is a feckless youth driven not by love for Katherine but by his love of money. He vows to tame her once she becomes his wife, and the wedding arrangements proceed. After their marriage Petruchio takes her to his home in Verona where his plan to subdue her begins by denying her food, sleep and fine clothes. On a journey to her childhood home in Padua, and worn down by the cruelty of her husband, Katherine agrees when he says the sun is the moon and an old man is a beautiful young woman, and thus the taming is well on its way. Meanwhile, Bianca and Lucentio secretly marry and when Katherine and Petruchio arrive, a joint wedding feast for the two sisters and their husbands is arranged. However, in the end it is Katherine who demonstrates how Petruchio has changed her by immediately going to him when he calls her, whereas Bianca fails to do this when her husband calls her. Katherine then makes a speech imploring women to obey their husbands thus proving that the shrew has been tamed.
Below are extracts from Katherine’s monologue advocating women’s obedience to their husbands (Act 5, Scene 2), spoken in Upstart Crow during the Red Lion performance of this play with Condell as Katherine:
…Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign…
…Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
Following Dr John V Nance’s recent computer comparison analysis of a scene in The Taming of the Shrew, where doubt had been cast on Shakespeare as the sole writer, a theory suggesting Christopher Marlowe as a co-writer of this play has emerged. Indications to support this theory include use of the phrase ‘to be atchiev’d’, spoken by Lucentio, as Marlowe is the only dramatist of that era to have previously used this wording (in Tamburlaine the Great Part 1,thought to have beenwritten around 1587). In addition, the reference to metaphysics was unique to Marlowe’s writing. He used ‘metaphisickes’ in Dr Faustus (thought to have been written between 1589 and 1592), and ‘metaphysical’ is featured in The Taming of the Shrew. Further research into this theory is to be carried out. On the other hand and looking at this impartially, there is always the possibility that Shakespeare, who was heavily influenced by Marlowe’s work, merely copied/borrowed these words. Copyright did not exist in the 16th century, but perhaps Marlowe even gave Shakespeare permission to use his wording, though all this is speculation.
The Taming of the Shrew was published in the First Folio in 1623, naming William Shakespeare alone as the author. Interestingly, there is another earlier, anonymous version of this play, believed to have been written when Shakespeare’s playwriting career was in its infancy. Both have the same title but though there are similarities, there are also marked differences between the two. In this earlier play Christopher Sly is also a drunkard who is tricked into believing he is a lord, but he is on stage throughout each act. It features a ‘shrewish’ wife named Kate, though other characters’ names differ, and it is set in Athens, not Padua or even Verona. There have been various theories put forward by academics to explain the two versions, among them:
It was an early draft by Shakespeare
It inspired the Bard to write his well-known play of this name.
The link below to the British Library’s website gives more details on the two plays.
With no copyright laws in the 16th century the names of the authors of so many dramas are unknown (hence the disputes over who wrote Shakespeare’s plays). The playwrights sold their work to the playhouses and were rarely given credit for authorship. The reason there are definite indications that Marlowe wrote the plays attributed to him is that Philip Henslowe, owner and manager of the Rose Playhouse in London, kept a diary, still extant. This consisted of a column in his accounts book in which he recorded the takings for the play performed that day, often with the name of the play’s writer. Many of Marlowe’s plays were performed at the Rose at the time Henslowe was recording such details and so there is no doubt as to the identity of the dramatist behind such ‘hits’ as Tamburlaine and Dr Faustus.
The first page of The Taming of the Shrew in the First Folio, printed in 1623
Upstart Crow – Beware My Sting (Series 2, Episode 5)
While chatting to Kate and Bottom, Will lists off many of the phrases he claims to have invented. Certainly, most are attributed to Shakespeare and are included in many of his plays (though may have been in common parlance at the time but never before written down) but a few had appeared previously in publications by well- known writers, such as:
In a nutshell – there are claims that it was used by Ancient Romans Cicero and Pliny the Elder, the latter in AD77 when quoting Cicero who died in 43BC and was of the opinion that the whole of Homer’s Illiad could be fitted into a walnut shell
Neither here nor there – Arthur Golding in 1593 from his translation of The sermons of J. Calvin upon Deuteronomie
Didn’t sleep a wink – Robert Manning in 1307 from his Handlyng synne
Scuffle – Scandinavian word skuffa, meaning to push or shove. First known use in English was in the 1570s
Dead as a doornail – William Langsland in 1362 from The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, as Kate pointed out
Will is writing his new comedy with a headstrong young woman as the heroine, whom he hopes will appeal to the women in the audience. This play is of course The Taming of the Shrew and the lead character appeals to Kate at first, in fact so much so that she wants to play the lead role (Katherine) and describes her as ‘feisty’, a word Kate has invented. However, when she later learns that towards the end of the play Katherine is tamed by her husband and from then on is obedient to him, she takes offence and begs Will to abandon this play (which of course he doesn’t).
On his return to Stratford to visit his family, Will finds his daughter Susanna is behaving even more like a typical grumpy teenager and describes her to Anne as ‘feisty’, a word which impresses his wife who asks if it’s one of his. Typically, he tells her it is, with no hint of crediting Kate with the invention of this word. However, ‘feisty’ did not exist in English in the 16th century. In fact, it seems to have entered the English language in the 19th century, almost certainly via America. It is believed to be of old German origin and was used in that language centuries ago to describe small flatulent dogs!
As the conversation with the family continues, Anne remarks that Susanna is so unlike her younger, sweet sister Judith who will attract many suitors, while no one will show any interest in Susanna. After all, even in The Quality of Mercy, the last episode of the first series, when Susanna’s future marriageable status was mentioned, Anne reckoned they wouldn’t be able to ‘offload her for less than tenbob’! In this episode, Will decides that Judith will not marry before Susanna and any man keen to marry Judith must first find a husband for Susanna. Anne then points out to Will that life is not like one of his comedies: ‘Will, all the world is not a stageand all the men and women ain’t merelyplayers’. This line is almost word for word from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It,believed to have been written in 1599 and probably first performed in 1603. It is likely that when Shakespeare wrote these words he was acknowledging The Globe, the playhouse with which he was so closely associated. The Latin motto of this theatre was: ‘Totus mundus agit histronem’ which translates into English as ‘The whole world is aplayhouse’. In real life, Susanna did marry first, at the age of 24, becoming the wife of local doctor John Hall in 1607. In 1616, at the age of 31, Judith married vintner Thomas Quiney, less than three months before the death of her father.
Back in his London lodgings, Will admits he doesn’t know where Padua is, and Kit warns him that centuries later there could be speculation that he was too thick to have written his own plays, which Will strongly denies. This of course is a reference to the modern-day debate on Shakespeare not being the author of the plays credited to him, with the names of many of his contemporaries, especially Marlowe’s, put forward as the possible playwright of these famous dramas.
Soon after this, we find Robert Greene as Master of the Revels, responsible for the censorship and licensing of plays for stage performances. In reality he never held such a positon, but between 1579 and 1619 this was the role of Sir Edmund Tilney whose decisions would have had an impact on the work of Shakespeare and other dramatists of the era.
Kit pays a visit to Will’s lodgings and learns from Kate that his friend has returned to Stratford. Kit then admits that he was intending to have ‘another stab’ at persuading Will to give him his Edward II play. However, by the end of Series 3 of Upstart Crow, Kit has had no success in convincing Will to hand over his Edward II play to him. However, we must assume that somewhere along the line in the Upstart Crow world Will agreed, because Edward II is definitely one of Marlowe’s plays, though the dates of writing and first performance are not certain. It is one of the first historical plays to be written and is likely to have influenced Shakespeare, especially in his early days of playwriting. Christopher Marlowe was ever the innovator and his new-style plays paved the way for other dramatists as theatre became a popular form of entertainment in the late 16th century.
Meanwhile in their bedroom in Stratford Will reveals to Anne that he intends to start taming Susanna the next day by following his plot for his latest play, calling his plan ‘The Taming of the Sue’. Anne remains silent but from her facial expression it is evident she has little faith in this idea. Will wastes no time and employs a diluted version of Petruchio’s methods. He refuses Susanna bacon at mealtime and declares that the sun is the moon and her grandfather is a pretty maid, asking his daughter to agree with these statements. Instead of becoming subdued, Susanna becomes enraged, agrees with the statements to keep her father quiet and tells him to stop being weird. On hearing that he considers her a shrew whom he has tamed, Susanna storms out of the house, threatening never to return. His plan is a resounding failure, unlike Petruchio’s!
The episode concludes in Stratford with Anne and Will having one of their late-night chats when Susanna comes downstairs, full of enthusiasm and holding a manuscript (having obviously reconsidered her earlier decision never to return home). She tells her father that she is emotionally moved by Romeo and Juliet. He is pleased to hear this and tells Susanna that he based Juliet on her, but whether in reality Shakespeare had his eldest daughter in mind when creating Juliet’s character is open to speculation. In Upstart Crow Susanna is 13 in 1592, but the real Susanna was younger. Born in May 1583 she would have been nine in that year. The date given for the writing of Romeo and Juliet is between 1591 and 1596 and the main source for Shakespeare’s play is almost certainly an Arthur Brooke poem based on an Italian tale by Matteo Bandello.
The next Facts List will cover Sweet Sorrow, with the lead-up to and debut of Romeo and Juliet.It is the last episode in Series 2 but there are more Facts Lists to follow with details on Series 3 and the Christmas specials.
Hello everyone! I just wanted to share with you all a column I’ve written for The British Comedy Guide’s new Comedy Rewind feature. It’s about the (sort of) Peep Show spin-off: The Old Guys.
A Dose Of David Mitchell 