That was the analogy of life offered by Mr William Shakespeare yesterday when his latest play opened at the Globe. Mr Shakespeare went on to further compare plays with the seven stages of life by declaring that 'All the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances, And one nun in his time plays many parts.' Mr Shakespeare's latest offering, a comedy entitled As You Like It, opened to mixed reviews with the Southwark Gazette declaring it 'a rollicking comedy of the highest order' while the Westminster Evening News described it as 'tawdry rubbish from the Warwickshire shithouse'. Mr Shakespeare declined to comment as he is already penning a follow-up.

Article in Blackfriar New, September 1589

We turned to find a small man with wild, unkempt hair standing in the doorway. He was dressed in Elizabethan clothes that had seen far better days and his feet were bound with strips of cloth as makeshift shoes. He twitched nervously and one eye was closed - but beyond this the similarity to the Shakespeares Bowden had found was unmistakable. A survivor. I took a step closer. His face was lined and weathered and those teeth he still possessed were stained dark brown and worn. He must have been at least seventy but it didn't matter. The genius that had been Shakespeare had died in 1616 but genetically speaking he was with us right now.

'William Shakespeare?'

'I am a William, sir, and my name is Shgakespeafe,' he corrected.

'Mr Shgakespeafe,' I began again, unsure of how to explain exactly what I wanted, 'my name is Thursday Next and I have a Danish prince urgently in need of your help.'

He looked from me to Bowden to Millon and then back to me again. Then a smile broke across his weathered features.

'O, wonder!' he said at last. 'How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!'

He stepped forward and shook our hands warmly; it didn't look as though he had seen anyone for a while.

'What happened to the others, Mr Shgakespeafe?'

He beckoned us to follow him and then was off like a gazelle. We had a hard job keeping up with him as he darted down the labyrinthine corridors, nimbly avoiding the rubbish and broken equipment. We caught up with him when he stopped at a broken window that overlooked what had once been a large exercise compound. In the middle were two grassy mounds. It didn't take a huge amount of imagination to guess what was underneath them.

'O heart, heavy heart, Why sigh'st thou without breaking?' murmured Shgakespeafe sorrowfully. 'After the slaughter of so many peers by falsehood and by treachery, when will our great regenitors be conquered?'