I’m not enough of a Shakespeare scholar to vouch for the accuracy of Ben Elton’s historical sitcom, but as a comedy geek I can at least confirm that it is funnier than his last effort, The Wright Way. 

In the fourth episode David Mitchell as the bard has just knocked off his 154th sonnet. Keen to be down with the Elizabethan kids and their short attention spans he has twigged that succinct poems might be the future – teens are loitering on street corners hunched over poetry, not plays, with books of rhymes bulging out of their “puffling pants”. 

This is just one of the nice, knowing gags that Elton’s script makes, drawing comparisons between then and now and suggesting that apart from the the tightness of your trousers nothing much changes. 

The only problem for Shakespeare (David Mitchell) is that his romantic verse gets him into hot water with both his long-suffering wife Anne Hathaway (Liza Tarbuck) and his rival Sir Robert Greene (Mark Heap really getting his teeth into the panto villain aspect of his role). Instead of ending up topping the charts he ends up in the torture chamber, where John Sessions is underused as the Lord Inquisitor (I didn’t even recognise Sessions at first, he still looks like Arthur Lowe).

There are plenty of laughs to be had in a script that juxtaposes modern attitudes (“nailed it” “iambic pentameter is my bitch”) with Shakespeare’s penchant for over-florid language. Elton certainly likes to mix up the then and the now. As well as Will Kempe as a Gervais-alike there’s a Russell Brand-ish character in this episode too. I’m not sure what Gervais has done to Elton to warrant the treatment dished out each week but despite the joke threatening to wear thin it still raises a chuckle. 

Mondays. 10pm, BBC2.

Read review of Episode 1 here.

Read review of Episode 2 here.

Read review of Episode 3 here.