Book review: Comic bardolatry seems to be on the up
It strikes me that colder, darker days require more laughter than the brightness and warmth of most of the Cypriot year. Fortunately, as a side-effect of my decision that the complete works of PG Wodehouse would make excellent bedtime reading for my son, I discovered the existence of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and with it the 2025 shortlist of reputedly the best comic literature of the year.
First up, Murder Most Foul by BAFTA award winning screenwriter Guy Jenkin, because what kind of English teacher would I be if I wasn’t immediately drawn to a murder-mystery about the death of Christopher Marlowe in which William Shakespeare is both suspect and detective?
Comic bardolatry seems to be on the up ever since Ben Elton’s Upstart Crow came out in 2016 (Ben, if you’re reading this, I’d be very keen on a new series), and Jenkins’ addition to this niche sub-genre is a welcome addition. When a dead body is seen on the banks of the Thames by a soon-to-be-brutally-orphaned little Dutch refugee named Lizzie, shortly before Shakespeare identifies Christopher Marlowe’s body on the floor of an unknown nobleman’s house in Deptford with a knife in his eye, a race against time begins to find out the real story behind the death of London’s premier playwright.
Leading Will through the investigation is Ann Marlowe, Chris’ younger sister and Shakespeare’s one-time lover and ongoing beloved. That’s one complication. There are more. For one thing, Shakespeare and Marlowe quarrelled the night of the death, with Shakespeare’s parting words being a vow to kill Marlowe. Hence the rumour that Shakespeare did the deed himself. For another, Will and Ann have only nine days to solve the mystery because that’s when Ann is getting married to a man she doesn’t love in order to save the family business from her father’s reckless incompetence.
Throw in the presence of a mysterious and beguiling foreign spy, Bella, who traverses London with her killer dog and vials of poison, various untrustworthy members of the nobility, the overarching threat of torture and violence, the potentially deadly self-inflicted wound on Will’s chest, and the fact that London is in the middle of the worst plague for a century, and things look both bleak and tremendously entertaining.
The plot is fast, there are enjoyable nods to Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet via the presence of a poison-brewing friar and irascible gravedigger, and the relationship between Will and Ann is touchingly wrought amid all the violence and mayhem. It’s not as funny as Wodehouse, and history purists might be upset by the anachronism and inaccuracy, but Murder Most Foul is a lot of fun and a great book for a winter’s night.