Shakes versus Shav is a puppet play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1949, and his final completed dramatic work. The play features a humorous debate between William Shakespeare (“Shakes”) and Shaw himself (“Shav”), engaging in a satirical battle over literary superiority. The play is Shaw’s critique of “bardolatry”—the excessive reverence for Shakespeare—and showcases his characteristic wit. [1]
In the bustling heart of Elizabethan London, a young Thomas Kyd began a life that would shape the course of English drama. Baptised on 6 November 1558, the same year Elizabeth I ascended the throne, Kyd came of age during a time of vibrant cultural renewal. His father was a scrivener—an educated scribe—suggesting that the family occupied a respectable, if modest, place in London society. This connection to the written word may have seeded in Thomas a love of language that would later flourish.
Kyd received an excellent education at the newly established Merchant Taylors’ School, known for its rigorous Latin curriculum and classical training. His schoolmates included other notable Elizabethans, and the intellectual atmosphere no doubt sharpened his literary instincts. No university records confirm his attendance, and instead, he probably became apprenticed in his father’s trade. He also found employment as a translator, but it is believed that by 1583 (or thereabouts) he was already writing for the stage.
His most famous work, The Spanish Tragedy, burst onto the London stage in the late 1580s and became one of the era’s most influential plays. With its haunting portrayal of revenge, madness, and ghostly justice, Kyd’s tragedy captivated audiences and helped establish the genre of revenge drama that would so powerfully influence later playwrights, including William Shakespeare. In fact, some scholars believe that Kyd authored an earlier, now-lost version of Hamlet, known as the “Ur-Hamlet,” suggesting his creative shadow falls long over the Bard’s most famous play.
Kyd’s life, however, was far from the triumph of his theatrical success. In 1593, he was arrested and interrogated on suspicion of heresy after incriminating papers were found among his possessions. He insisted the papers belonged to Christopher Marlowe, with whom he had shared lodgings. The experience shattered his reputation, and Kyd died a year later in obscurity and poverty, only in his mid-thirties.
Though his career was brief, Thomas Kyd’s legacy remains—he helped to forge the emotional intensity and dramatic structure that would become hallmarks of the Elizabethan stage.
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