Anne Neilson picked up on it.


KING LEAR [Petronella]
(Adam McNaughtan)

Auld King Lear thought he’d abdicate
And turn the kingdom ower to a she-triumvirate;
So he turned to his daughters and he made the state
How much love to him was due.
Gon’ril said, “Ah love ye mair than tongue can name.”
Regan said, “Ah love ye till the coos come hame.”
Cordelia said, “Ah willnae play your silly game,
’Cause Ah’m gonnae love my husband too.”
Lear took a flakey an’ he did deny her,
An’ the Duke o’ Kent got banished just for standin’ by her,
The King o’ France said, “You are my heart’s desire.”
He proposed and she said, “I do.”
And the auld Duke o’ Gloucester got a letter
That telt him wan o’ his sons was a traitor,
But he couldnae tell the worse frae the better,
Nor the false yin frae the true.

Lear had devised a kinna time-share plan
To stey wi’ his daughters wan by wan,
Wi’ a hundred troops to dauner roon the land
An’ help him while he slaked his drouth.
Regan said, “Your troops are aye on the booze,
An’ aw that you’re needin’ is a place to snooze.”
“NEED!” he says. “Efter aw Ah’ve done for youse!”
An’ he stertit shootin’ aff his mooth.
So oot in the storm she sent him packin’
An’ the fool tried to keep him sane by yakkin’;
Kent came to help in spite o’ his sackin’
An’ got pilloried for bein’ uncouth.
Gloucester must ha’ been certifiable
When he was taken in by Edmund’s libel;
It wasnae till he loast his secont eyeball
That he could see the natural truth.

On the Dover Road the traffic got tight
When they heard that Cordelia had come hame to fight:
There was Gloucester an’ Poor Tam the Bedlamite
An’ the King an’ the unkent Kent.
Albany was virtuous an’ Cornwall deid.
That’s no the kinna husbands Lear’s daughters need;
It’s the vicious type that turns their heid.
So for Edmund they baith went.
Gon’ril sent Oswald for to bring back Gloucester
’Cause she said that folk’s opinions he’d cost her,
But Edgar wiped his name aff the roster
An’ read what Goneril had sent.
Lear an’ Cordelia were re-united
An’ she telt him no to get over-excited,
But just as soon as she’d won the fight, he’d
Find oot whit a daughter’s love meant.

But efter the baddies had won the day,
Edgar challenged Edmund an’ blew him away;
An’ Goneril committit felo-de-se
Efter seein’ to her sister’s death.
Cordelia died at the end o’ a rope;
Lear killt the hangman and startit to mope,
Then his poor hert burst in an access of hope
When he thought that he saw her breath.
So mind when you enter the playhouse portals,
That a Shakespeare tragedy’s short on chortles;
When it comes to killin’ aff fellow-mortals,
Bill Shakespeare isnae laith.
Ah’ve read King Lear an’ Ah’ve seen it actit,
Wi’ eyes gouged oot an’ auld men distractit,
An’ Ah can tell you for a fact that
There’s mair laughs in Hamlet or Macbeth.