Old Bill ‘Through the Ages’

Synopsis: Feature film. ‘Comedy based on the characters created by Bruce Bairnsfather. Old Bill, in the trenches during the First World War, eats tinned lobster and dreams that he and his friends travel back in time to the time of William the Conqueror, to Runnymede for the signing of Magna Carta, to the time of Queen Elizabeth and lastly the Civil War. In the third section Old Bill is a courtier who is sent to Stratford to fetch William Shakespeare, whom he finds dictating a sonnet to a room full of typists. Shakespeare shows Old Bill his complete works (each volume ascribed to Bacon), some of which are deemed unsuitable for the royal eyes, and Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway and Old Bill travel to court. There Shakespeare gives selected readings from the plays (including the Hamlet soliloquy III i), gradually sending the court to sleep. Old Bill throws a bomb at him, but he continues undeterred. Walter Raleigh introduces the court to tobacco, which goes down much better. Entertaining when described, somewhat tedious to view, with many obscure contemporary references and a general air of amateurishness. Nevertheless, in isolation the Shakespeare sequence is quite fun’. [With acknowledgment to McKernan & Terris, op cit for the description].
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Silent
Year of release: 1924
Duration: 86 mins; 7,800 feet

Director

Thomas Bentley

Cinematographer

Horace Wheddon

Screenplay

Eliot Stannard

Cast

Notes: The copy in the BFI National Archive is incomplete at 5,976ft (65mins).
Reviews: McKernan, Luke and Olwen Terris. Walking Shadows: Shakespeare in the National Film and Television Archive. London: BFI, 1994 (p. 185).

SHAKESPEARE