Put your titters away, because I'm talking about Shakespeare. In 1957 Frankie Howerd was invited to appear as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic.
And very good he was to, at least according to Francis Wyndham in The Queen (7 January 1958):
Some members of the audience may have feared that his gift for gagging might interfere with the sacred text; others, that his comic genius might be constrained within the limitations of a classic.
On the first night he struck a happy medium, under-acting in the rehearsal and Titania scenes but bursting out with hilarious bravado when performing Pyramus before the Duke. This play scene can have seldom been made so funny.
You can see Howerd's Bottom ("Shut your face.") in the video above.
Far down the cast as First Fairy ("And that's an achievement with this lot, I can tell you.") was a young Judi Dench. You can see and hear her below.
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