Academia rocked by Shakespeare revelation

As dust floats gently down the sleepy corridors of Magdalene College, Oxford, the still is disturbed by occasional but hysterical whoops of joy coming from Room 12. The cramped office of Professor William Turner-Kay is bustling with bods, pointy heads and chinless wonders from every history, literature and art department on the campus.

The cause of such merrymaking is not a twelve-pound block of cannabis resin, but a stash of pamphlets, papers and bound volumes that finally answer the riddle of Shakespearean authorship. "Before these were discovered," Professor Turner-Kay tells The Rockall Times, "this whole subject had been hijacked by conspiracy theorists from Lowestoft to Louisville. Now we can finally set this issue to rest."

The conspiracy has long held that William Shakespeare, a humble pastry chef from Stratford-upon-Avon, was not the author of well known plays such as Macbeth and Hamlet, but rather these were the works of either Edward de Vere or, more notoriously, Christopher Marlowe. "It looks like Marlowe was the author after all," says Turner-Kay, "but not of the final versions; the ones we have come to love and admire."

Dragging a musty set of papers, held together with a rough length of twine, I read the cover: Two Blokes of Verona by Chris Marlow. "And then there's this," says Turner-Kay, slipping Shakespeare's refined draft from the back of the original — The Two Gentlemen of Verona by Williame Shakspear. "It's evident that Shakespeare was taking Marlowe's work and probably for a fee, tidying them up and preparing them for sale," asserts Turner-Kay.

Shakespeare didn't just work on the titles. In Twelfth Night, or What You Lookin At?, the immortal opening lines spoken by the Duke Orsino begin: "If music be the food of love, fill your boots lads." The play's title was later altered by Shakespeare to Twelfth Night or What You Will and the Duke's words are now: "If music be the food of love play on."

Evidently Marlowe wasn't totally happy with this arrangement. "In a way Shakespeare was undermining Marlowe's talent as a playwright. Every redraft was further proof that Marlowe couldn't write," explains Turner-Kay, showing me a letter the author wrote to his sister, Dotty: "My dearest Dotty, that Bill Shakefpoke is really getting on my ti*ts lately. I wrote a cracking tale about Richard the Third the other week. Richard the Humptybacked Minger. Old Shakefpoke comes along and uses his real name. What a tw*at. But I need the money. What can I do? Yours Chrif. PS if you can send us five bob until Friday I'd be eternally grateful."

More examples of rewrites are produced and laid side by side across the desk. It is startling to see the original drafts of some of the most profound dramatic poetry ever penned in the English language:

So, Escaped With the Skin of Us Teeth is transformed into All's Well That Ends Well and "My friends were poor but honest" sounds so much better than "a right bunch of freeloading shysters, my mates were".

Likewise, in Av It Your Way (As You Like It), "Oh! how bitter a thing is to look at happiness through another man's eyes" replaced "I am well pis*sed off. That geezer's missus is a fit bit of skin and no mistake". However the play did contain one line that Shakespeare decided not to alter: "Sweep on you fat and greasy citizens."

The masterwork Panatella eventually found its way onto the shelves in the guise of Hamlet, but not before Shakespeare replaced "it's a mug's game all this stuff on the never never" with "neither a borrower nor a lender be".

So where did Edward de Vere come to play a part in all this? Turner-Kay explains. "He had a go himself at one point. Before Marlowe met Shakespeare at Gregg's Bakery on Stratford High Street he was sending his first drafts to de Vere for his opinion. I think de Vere was too busy with his hotel business to take much notice because his corrections were worse than Marlowe's originals. He shows me a couple of examples:

I Am Caesar, I Am was completely mangled by de Vere into Big J and the Temple of Gore. "Go for the popular vote," was de Vere's advice in a badly-written letter dated 1586. "Lowest common denominator and all that. For example, Chris, you've written 'Watch out for them spring tides, they're mustard' I think something more like 'Anyone who sets foot in that river at this time o' year deserves to have his butt slapped, for they dost destroy any bloke with an ego the size o' Norfolk'." Thankfully Shakespeare later came along with the simple Julius Caesar and "Beware the ides of March".

The state of English literature and drama without Shakespeare's intervention is beyond imagination. Turner-Kay poses the question: "Can you imagine the A-level syllabus with questions like: 'She's put her cheek in her hand again, if I were a glove now I'd give it a right good rub' (Romeo and His Bird). Discuss Romeo's intentions and which cheek is he referring to?' In fact I don't think it would happen."

Pity poor Marlowe though. If he wasn't quite in the same league as Shakespeare there were moments when he came achingly close. From A Winter's Tale: "I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancestry, stealing, fighting and getting tanked up of a Friday night."

Perhaps one day we'll appreciate Marlowe for what he truly was. A master of the vernacular, a mirror of society at the time. A world uncontaminated by Shakespeare's careful refinery and way with words. And perhaps it's only fitting that Marlowe should be allowed the last word. Professor Turner-Kay selects an appropriate extract from King Henry the Fifth: Top Bloke: "Again, give 'em a good seeing to lads, or close up the wall with 8x4 ply and leave it safe 'til Monday."

Previously

• Lord Archer to pen Mark Thatcher biography
• Police cast doubt on veracity of Archer diaries
• Harry Potter to be made into book