Backstage: An Actor Prepares Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Waiting to die...
Polonius has a fag behind the arras.

Hamlet fancies
both Ophelia & his Mummy

pinches both
their arses
as he passes.

Ophelia looks suitably shocked.

Mummy looks rather pleased
(thought it would never come) .

King Cladius really fancies the Ghost
but doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance
because the Ghost already has a date
with Polonious’s son Laeretes.

The gravedigger fancies everyone
but alas poor yob
nobody(& I mean nobody)
fancies him!

Hamlet looking down
the Queen’s decottelage
(momentarily forgets his lines)
misses his cue.

Polonious has set fire to
the curtains in his arras

but Hamlet smells
“...a rat...a rat! ”

and puts him out of
his misery.

Afterwards they all go
for a pint

and agree it was one
of their better nights.