[WP] Through magic, various characters from Shakespeare's plays get together to roast him.

Troilus: Welcome! You blocks, you stones, you worse then senseless things! We are not here to praise William, but to bury him!

<loud laughs and claps from audience>

To wit, cast your gaze upon his creations most foul; Henry VI, Lear the King, and dear Hamlet. Alight your gaze upon Coriol...... anus.

<Coriolanus bends over in his chair in laughter, the audience as well>

Corialanus: There is no more mercy in you, dearest Troilus, then there is milk in a male tiger!

<more audience laughter>

Troilus: <sotto voce> A fusty nut with no kernel, that one! BUT ON WITH OUR SHOW! Come hither, yon Henry, King of the realm, alight us with your plentiful lack of wit.

Henry IV: Avaunt, you cullions! I see before me on his royal chair a truly fair man, Shakespeare in flesh and countenance. And what a fine countenence indeed. For is it not said the tartness of his face sours ripe graps?!

<Shakespeare stifles a giggle, the deep potmarks of a bout with cowpox are a famous feature of his. The audience laughs at his discomfort)

Henry IV: He is white-livered and red-face, but fear not dear Creator, for we do not all despise thee....yet! Platitudes I grace upon thee, allow... Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you bull's pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck!

<crowd and guests laugh unabashedly. Shakespeare grabs at his bosom in mock-pain of heart. He is laughing the hardest>

Henry IV: But alas, I alight too long. I present in his glory most royal (but minor of mine) King Lear!

<standing "O", Lear is a local>

King Lear: Oh, Henry! <crowd laughs raucously> Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, to signify thou camest to bite the world! But is it not our dear Father we come to humble tonight? A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition!

<crowd jumps to its feet, and cheers! He has brought the thatch roof down upon their heads in hilarity!>

Shakespeare: Away, you moudly rogue, away!

<Lear smiles broadly and walks over to Shakespeare and both bend a knee at each other in mockery, then a profound hug most chaste, but brotherly. The audience can't get enough.>

Troilus: Why, this hath not a finger's dignity! So ends our patronage of the Man. Our joy, our cloud, our midsummer night's dream! A night most dear to you all, for I do desire we may be better strangers!

/r/WritingPrompts Thread