Follow TV Tropes

Following

The Bard on Board

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lion_king_hamlet.png

"Shakespeare Did It First!"

William Shakespeare, an English playwright, has been a major influence on English language fiction for 400 years. He is also often the only playwright most people can name, even though most only know his plays through Popcultural Osmosis or English class. The tropes he invented or popularized (to say nothing of the significant portion of the English language he pioneered) are still with us today and his plays are considered the most memorable works in the history of the English language. So when you're a struggling writer or new screenwriter trying to pen a new story, why not take one of his plots?

A subtrope of Whole-Plot Reference, and also of Setting Update. A lot of Recycled In Space would be these as well, especially the rash of IN HIGH SCHOOL! films like 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew), O (Othello), and She's the Man (Twelfth Night).

This trope only applies to works that follow the plot of a Shakespeare play, not to works using his characters or written as sequels. So Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, despite being made entirely of characters in Hamlet, is not this. It would only be so if Rosencrantz was Guildenstern's evil uncle, who killed Guildenstern's father... So Alan Gordon's Thirteenth Night (being a sequel to Twelfth Night) doesn't count, but his An Antic Disposition (which follows the plot of Hamlet) would.

See also ReferencedBy.William Shakespeare. Not to be confused with Shakespeare in Fiction, which is about appearances by the man himself. Anyone who regards this as writers being unoriginal should consider that Shakespeare did this himself. All but two of Shakespeare plays (The Tempestnote  and The Merry Wives of Windsor), was taken either from Real Life history or from pre-existing stories.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Hamlet 
  • Sons of Anarchy — Sometimes called the "biker Hamlet", it follows a motorcycle club whose membership resembles the roles in the play.
  • The Lion King (1994) (pictured above) — Evil uncle kills good king father, son overthrows him. The ending is lighter, though.
  • The Bad Sleep Well — Young man gets a prominent position in a corrupt postwar Japanese company in order to expose the men responsible for his father's death. It has its roots in Hamlet.
  • Let The Devil Wear BlackHamlet updated to modern-day southern California as a moody grad student is compelled to take revenge on his uncle for his father's death.
  • Legend of the Black Scorpion is the wuxia version of Hamlet.
  • Strange Brew is a fairly low-brow version of Hamlet, with, perhaps, Bob and Doug McKenzie as Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern.
  • The Dead Fathers Club is a novel that reimagines the story of Hamlet in modern-day England.
  • Wyrd Sisters, while mostly Macbeth, has a fair chunk of Hamlet as well; most notably the Catch the Conscience scene.
  • Scott G. F. Bailey's The Astrologer resets the action to the seventeenth century.
  • The Tragedy of Greenhilt from The Order of the Stick supplement Snips, Snails and Dragon Tales is a retelling of Hamlet by Roy Greenhilt, with himself as the hero, Big Bad Xykon as King Claudius, and the rest of the cast in various other roles. Classic literature, ruined in the way that only The Order of the Stick can!
  • The Raven Tower is Hamlet in a secondary-world fantasy setting, with added gods.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The story surrounding Dimitri heavily parallels Hamlet. Dimitri starts out as an idealistic, refined prince whose life gets upended by his king father's death. He becomes haunted by the image of his father demanding revenge, and his quest for vengeance eventually takes a toll on both his sanity and his relationships with his friends. Dimitri eventually gets exiled by an authority figure complicit in his father's death, from which he fights his way out to claim his revenge.

    Henry IV 
  • My Own Private Idaho — The story of two hustlers on a journey to find peace and a long-lost mother, inspired by Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.

    Henry V 
  • Shakespearean director and actor Kenneth Branagh (who has directed and starred in acclaimed versions of Hamlet, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing) stated that he based Thor on Henry V; a prince fights in a war, has a romance with a girl from another land, and undergoes some basic character development. He also drew inspiration from the subplot from King Lear concerning Edgar and his bastard brother Edmund, who tricks his father into exiling him.

    King Lear 
  • Akira Kurosawa's Ran is an interesting case. He said in an interview that he wrote a draft of the screenplay and showed it to a friend, who read it and said "Oh, it's King Lear!", to which Kurosawa responded, "It's what?" After he read Lear, he edited Ran to match it more closely, and threw in some quotes.
  • King Of TexasKing Lear set on a ranch in the Old West.
  • A Thousand AcresKing Lear on a Midwestern American farm, where three daughters despise their abusive father.
  • Harry and Tonto — After his life-long New York City home is torn down, a retired schoolteacher makes a cross-country journey to visit his estranged children in this adaptation of King Lear.
  • Moss Gown is a mix of Cinderella and King Lear with a Setting Update to the antebellum Sweet Home Alabama.
  • Honoré de Balzac's novel Le Père Goriot, in which the Lear figure is a wealthy merchant who gives his money to his status-seeking daughters.
  • Marcus Pitcaithly's The Realm of Albion is the Lear story firmly in its original ancient British setting... from the viewpoint of the King's otherwise unknown wife.
  • The Arthur episode "Never, Never, Never" borrows elements from the story.
  • Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser takes place backstage in a regional tour of King Lear during World War II. The actor playing Lear, a former star known only as "Sir," suffers from dementia. Norman, his gay dresser, is the equivalent of both Cordelia and the Fool.
  • The My Parents Are Aliens episode "King Brian" is closely based on the play, with Brian asking the three kids who loves him best, and Lucy refusing to take part, playing the Cordelia role.
  • Fool by Christopher Moore is King Lear told from the Fool's point of view.
  • The 1930s Yiddish movie The Jewish King Lear, about a New York City factory owner.

    Macbeth 
  • Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood was directly and consciously based on Macbeth.
  • Scotland, PA, which transplants Macbeth to a fast food restaurant in rural Pennsylvania in the 1970s.
  • Men Of Respect — After hearing a prophecy, a hitman executes his superiors and rises to the head of a mob family with dire consequences. Men of Respect was a remake of the 1955 film Joe Mac Beth, which also recast the original story with modern-day gangsters.
  • The Outer Limits (1963) episode "The Bellero Shield" takes some elements from Macbeth without following the plot exactly. The Lady Macbeth role is filled by the greedy, ambitious wife of an idealistic scientist. When a gentle alien accidentally winds up in the husband's lab, he becomes the equivalent to Banquo's ghost; the wife kills him and tries to pass off his Imported Alien Phlebotinum as her husband's invention, only to learn that the alien is Not Quite Dead.
  • Wyrd Sisters is a parodic retelling, from the perspective of the (benevolent, in this case) witches.
  • Macbeth is a recurring Anti-Villain in Gargoyles and his story is re-told with Shakespeare's story as the basis but with the Gargoyles' characters in the mix, most notably Demona.
  • The Black Mirror episode Crocodile is all about a woman who during a drunken stupor got into a car with an equally drunk driver. They ended up killing a man and he convinced her to help him hide the body. Cut to 15 years later where she has a Highly Successful Professional and Personal Life, and he shows up 9 month sober seeking redemption. Cue the rising body-count (and yes, it turns out to be all for nothing).
  • An early Warhammer Fantasy campaign was titled "The Tragedy Of Mc Death" (subtle). While the basic characters are much the same if adapted to the local setting (Mc Death is literally invincible unless killed by a woman, C-section man, dwarf, or treeman), his wife is a Chaos worpshipper, and "Out, Damned Spot!" is the command used to tell her two-headed Hell Hound Spot to go away), it also features a number of sideplots like When Trees Attack, a Stock Ness Monster, two Scottish clans who hate each other, multiple Rightful Heir Returns who need to eliminate the competition to win, and a parody of a British miner's strike which the local government beats down with orcs (why yes, it was written in the Thatcher years, why do you ask?). The players are encouraged to be at their most Shakespearean while gaming.

    The Merchant of Venice 
  • The Merchant of London arc of Moriarty the Patriot is a blatant adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, staring a young, pre-Moriarty William in the role of Shylock. Of course, William is well aware of what he's doing and the entire thing acknowledges the event are ripped straight out of a Shakespeare play—including Louis arguing that being in the role of Shylock is a terrible idea. William quotes the play to the Baron toward the end of the arc, angry that the man expected him not to know what situation he was walking into. Apparently, he has all forty plays by The Bard memorized, a number which by necessity includes the lost and partial plays.

    A Midsummer Night's Dream 
  • Get Over It is based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, set in high school. Bonus points for the fact that the wedding tableau from the source material becomes a School Play of A Midsummer Night's Dream itself. The play goes Off the Rails when the Lysander analogue falls for the Helena one, and physically changes the ending to have them end up together.
  • One House of Mouse short is actually based on this play.
  • The Woody Allen film A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy.
  • The musical The Dreaming
  • Discworld:
    • Lords and Ladies riffs on the play a bit, most obviously with Jason Ogg's Rude Mechanicals.
    • The Science of Discworld II: The Globe has the wizards battling elves on Roundworld to ensure that the premiere of A Midsummer Night's Dream goes ahead, as they correctly predict that it will lead to the cutesification of fairies in culture and rob the elves of their power to intimidate and prey on people.
  • Were The World Mine is a gay musical which clearly has A Midsummer Night's Dream as its primary influence.
  • Pibgorn did A Midsummer Night's Dream with Gender Flipped roles and actual fairies IN THE THIRTIES!.
  • An episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody has the school putting on a production of the play, and real life parallels the text when couples fall in love with other people after they're cast in the wrong parts.

    Othello 
  • The 1962 film All Night Long is an adaptation of Othello set in the contemporary London jazz scene.
  • Hell-Bent Fer Heaven is a stage play loosely inspired by Othello. Writer Hatcher Hughes borrowed liberally, with Sid being a war hero returning home like Othello, and Rufe being a scheming plotter like Iago, whispering things into people's ears to set them against each other rather than taking action himself. Rufe even parrots Iago's refusal to answer questions when exposed ("From this time forth I never will speak word"), saying "An' you needn't ax me no more questions, fer I ain't a-goin' to answer 'em."
  • Othello, a modern language adaptation of Othello that aired on ITV in 2001. John Othello, a cop promoted to police commissioner, is manipulated by his former partner Jago. Stars Eeamon Walker as Othello and Christopher Eccleston as Jago.
  • "O" — Odin James (Mekhi Phifer) is the captain of his high school basketball team, while Hugo (Josh Hartnett) plots to undo his popularity.
  • Omkara is a Bollywood musical version of Othello, where the title character is set apart by his half-caste status.
  • A Double Life (1940s, starring Ronald Colman): A stage actor, playing Othello for two years, identifies with his role so much that he becomes increasingly suspicious that his girlfriend is unfaithful.

    Romeo And Juliet 
  • 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a very early example, written in 1633. It's Romeo and Juliet but with Brother–Sister Incest. Two doomed lovers in Italy? There's plausible deniability for that part. But the girl's confidant, her bawdy nurse, and the boy's confidant, a friar? That part is too specific to have been a coincidence.
  • Gnomeo & Juliet hangs a lampshade on it in the introduction, where one of the gnomes mention that "this story has been retold. A lot." Not just that. Later in the movie, a statue of Shakespeare himself shows up and talks over the story with the main character, Gnomeo. He even says, obliquely, that the original story was a tragedy and that he hopes Gnomeo's story ends on a happier note, setting Gnomeo further on his quest to make sure his story turns out differently.
  • West Side Story is a modernized, musical version of Romeo and Juliet, with rival gangs and racial differences standing in place of the two families. All the characters are stand-ins for one or more characters from Romeo and Juliet, and many of the scenes are, too, replicas of those in Romeo and Juliet, such as a fire escape scene that replaces the balcony scene.
  • An in-universe example: In one episode of Higher Ground, the students practice and perform a play written by their classmate, which eerily follows the plot of Romeo and Juliet, despite the writer's claim that he's never read Shakespeare. In the end, of course, it turned out he had, but his friend tells him that it's not a problem copying Shakespeare; writers do it all the time.
  • Romeo Must Die — Loosely based on Romeo and Juliet featuring Chinese and black mob families as the Montagues and Capulets and lots of kung fu.
  • Love Is All There IsRomeo and Juliet with two rival restaurant-owning Italian families in New York at constant odds especially after their children fall in love.
  • China GirlRomeo and Juliet in New York City, with rival Italian and Chinese gangs as the feuding families.
  • Los Tarantos has the lovers as members of rival Roma (aka "gypsy") families in modern (1963) Barcelona.
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, when it comes to Kiara (Simba's daughter) and Kovu's forbidden romance. Like the first movie, the ending is notably lighter, though.
  • Warm Bodies, with humans and zombies. The girl's name is Julie and the zombie's name is R... something.
  • Magical Legend of the Leprechauns. Let's say the original Sheakespearean ending is thoroughly reversed.
  • Monica's Gang had Jimmy Five and Monica in the World of Romeo and Juliet, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, cuts out all references to death, and ends in a much happier note.
  • Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss — Pretty much Romeo and Juliet WITH SEALS!
  • John Keats' poem "The Eve of St. Agnes" borrows heavily from the Romeo and Juliet plot.
  • In Unseen Academicals, one of the romantic subplots is based on Romeo and Juliet. Instead of Feuding Families, Trev and Juliet are from rival football teams. Glenda even describes them as "two teams, alike in villainy!" which is a reference to "two houses, alike in dignity." However, Everybody Lives, and the feud is stopped by the teams uniting against a common opponent and agreeing to more civilized rules of football.
  • The GM Advice section in the post-apocalyptic pen-and-paper RPG Atomic Highway has a sample plot that is explicitly inspired by Romeo and Juliet, which makes the feuding families post-apocalyptic gangs and gives individual members names like Cat Skinner.
  • The 1994 Japanese children’s book One Stormy Night and its two Animated Adaptation’s (a 2005 anime film and 2012 CGI animated series) is essentially the Romeo and Juliet plot but with wolves and goats.
  • The The Order of the Stick bonus material Haleo and Julelan is a parody where Haley plays Romeo, Elan plays Juliet, and several other other characters of the comic appear with similarly themed names.
  • The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Perfect Pear" uses a similar setup to tell the love story of Applejack's parents, Bright Mac and Pear Butter, and the Apple/Pear family feud. While it's a Disneyfication that avoids the traditional Downer Ending by virtue of its Foregone Conclusion (Applejack and her siblings wouldn't have been born if their parents didn't get together), it still comes with a bittersweet twist that most kid-friendly retellings lack: Pear Butter's father disowns her at her wedding and never sees her again; both lovers are all but implicitly stated to have died before their time (just not before spending years happily raising a family together); and it takes many more years after that for both families to finally reconcile.
  • Pocahontas is a fictionalised version of the real Pocahontas's life, depicting a Romeo and Juliet esque romance between her and John Smith - while their respective people are threatening war. The movie was actually pitched as 'Romeo & Juliet in 17th Century Virginia'.
  • Charmed's sixth season has an episode called "Love's A Witch", showing a feud between two witch families, the Montanas and the Calloways. In this however, the Juliet analogue was killed and her ghost is actively trying to keep the feud going in revenge.
  • The Smurfs made a parody episode of the Romeo and Juliet story with Clumsy and Smurfette as the leads, and threw in The Three Musketeers for good measure.
  • An episode of Peter Pan & the Pirates has the Lost Boys and the Pirates setting aside their differences (in theory) to play Romeo and Juliet with Wendy as Juliet and Starsky as Romeo. Yup...
  • The Sliders episode "Net Worth" is set in a world where the Onliners, who embrace technology to the point of having cybernetic implants, have completely separated themselves from the Offliners, who are forbidden to have any form of technology. Rick Montana, an Offliner who possesses a laptop, met Joanne Capshaw, an Onliner who lives in the Ivory Towers (that's actually what her apartment building is called), on the Internet. They fell in love over the Internet without ever meeting in person. Joanne initially believes that Quinn is Rick. Unlike the play, however, it has a Happy Ending as Joanne leaves her high-tech world behind and goes to live with Rick. And his mother Shirley. Even the character names, Rick Montana and Joanne Capshaw, are very similar to Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985): "Song of the Younger World" involves a pair of teenage Star-Crossed Lovers, Amy Hawkline and Tanner Smith, who fall madly in love over the objections of her abusive father Mordecai. Amy uses the I Ching to make her soul leave her body and take possession of a wolf in an Alternate Universe. As she appears to be dead, Tanner is devastated and assumes that she has committed suicide because of her father. Unlike Friar Laurence's messenger in the play, however, Hoakie manages to get the news to Tanner that Amy is still alive. Tanner then uses the same spell to transfer his soul to the younger world before Mordecai can kill him.
  • The Sims 2 has the neighborhood Veronaville, whose main playable inhabitants are the Monty and Capp families; the fathers are set to Enemies, but Romeo Monty and Juliet Capp have maximum Chemistry and want to Sneak Out to see each other as soon as you open either family up.
  • NieR: Automata features a play that is very loosely based on Romeo & Juliet, wherein Machine Lifeforms depict multiple Romeos and Juliets and, unable to determine who is the real Romeo and Juliet, end up killing each other.

    The Taming Of The Shrew 
  • The Cutting Edge stars an abrasive prima donna pairs figure skater named Kate Moseley training for the Olympics with her unorthodox new partner, former hockey player partner Doug Dorsey, who's aiming to be the only one to successfully work with her. Loads of bickering and physical punishment are involved.
    Coach Anton Pamchenko: She is bitch.
  • 10 Things I Hate About You is based on The Taming of the Shrew, set in high school.
  • Deliver Us From Eva — Revolving around LL Cool J's character Ray being paid to date a troublesome young lady named Eva. To some extent, it is a modern, urban update The Taming of the Shrew.
  • Kiss Me, Kate is a musical about a company putting on a musical version of the Taming of the Shrew, while the in-show actors' lives mimic those of their characters. And yes, the unfortunate implications about spousal abuse are intact.

    The Tempest 

    Twelfth Night 
  • She's the Man is based on Twelfth Night, set in high school.
  • Wicker Park contains many references to the story, since one character is an actress playing Viola. When the director is talking to her, his statement "you are in love with him, and he's asking you to help him get another woman" parallels the Love Triangle in the story.

    Misc/Multiple 
  • In the Twilight Saga Official guide, Stephenie Mayer says that New Moon was inspired by Romeo and Juliet and Breaking Dawn by A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello.
  • The Consul's Tale ("Remembering Siri") from Hyperion is a literary example.
  • Simon Hawke wrote a series of books with a young Shakespeare and his buddy solving mysteries that bore a strong resemblance to Shakespeare's plays (which, In-Universe, he wrote much later). The first one was called A Mystery Of Errors followed by Much Ado About Murder, The Merchant of Vengence, and The Slaying of the Shrew.
  • Also in-universe, in The Curse of Monkey Island, a theatre performer on the pirate-infested Plunder Island rewrites a host of Shakespeare plays to better suit the local pirates' tastes, turning them into "Speare!", a revue of mishmashed Shakespeare plots with piratey undertones and new acrobatic stunts.
  • The Lion King 1 ½, which is essentially the first film, but told from Timon and Pumbaa's perspective. Therefore, since The Lion King is Hamlet, The Lion King 1 1/2 must be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which is surprisingly accurate given how both works poke at meta. Hell, from a plot perspective Timon and Pumba are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern characters; both pairs fill the role of the Prince's friends who tell him to lighten up and not be so moody all the time. This had to be intentional.
  • Several Merlin episodes are based on Shakespeare plots, most notably "Sweet Dreams", which is a The Comedy of Errors type story in which a Love Potion goes awry. In "Goblin's Gold", Arthur ends up with donkey's ears, rather like Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
  • The Discworld novel Wyrd Sisters combines elements of Macbeth (witches, a ghost, evil usurper, true heir in exile) with Hamlet (play-within-a-play, er, a ghost, evil usurper, true heir in exile...)
  • Simpsons Comics once did an issue parodying various Shakespeare plays, the highlight being Titus Andronicus as an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

"Kiss and Tell" Teaser

The Teaser for this ''Arthur'' episode is a parody of the Trope Codifier from ''Romeo and Juliet'', except that D.W. (who plays Juliet), is the one calling out for Romeo from the balcony.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (7 votes)

Example of:

Main / BalconyWooingScene

Media sources:

Report