Shakespeare's Brat

The Crossing is the third in a series of stories about a Tudor street urchin called Brat. After a chance meeting with the famous playwright, William Shakespeare on London Bridge, who is in the depths of despair at the loss of his son, Hamnet, the two embark on a path together. Brat finds himself becoming a cross between a servant, an apprentice and a replacement for the son William has so recently and tragically lost.

Tudor London life is seen through the eyes of Brat, who, having lived most of his life on the streets of the city, has no expectations but a constant fascination for everything going on around him.

The third story, The Crossing, deals with the dismantling of the Theatre in Shoreditch and its rebuilding as the great Globe Theatre across the river in Southwark. Brat spends time in the stocks for setting free some fighting cockerels from their captivity. The Theatre in Shoreditch becomes threatened. Shakespeare, while suffering from acute toothache, and his friends hatch a plan to save the timbers and transport them across the Thames to begin a new life as the Globe Theatre. When the new theatre is in the middle of its first performance, Queen Elizabeth and her friend, Bess of Hardwick, make a surprise visit backstage - they don't want to cause a fuss by their presence - but insist on going on stage together with their hoods down as a pair of servants, thus making them the first women to set foot as actors upon the stage! (How can Shakespeare refuse?). Momentous enough, it was also Brat's first chance to act on stage himself!

In the stories I have highlighted all quotes occurring in the dialogue between characters that appear in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, and have created a glossary at the end of each story, indicating which Shakespearean character spoke the words and in which play, act and scene they can be found.

Brat is an engaging personality with a social conscience - he thinks women should act their own parts on stage and that animal rights should be taken far more seriously!