Summer's Last Will And Testament

[poliphilo]

Researching Elizabethan/Jacobean literature (yeah, I've got a plan for Purchas to cross paths with wee Wullie Shakespeare) I just read Nashe's Summer's Last Will And Testament. Odd piece of work. Not exactly a play. A lot of allegorical blokes standing up one after another to deliver themselves of satirical monologues. With musical interludes and a guy pretending to be Will Summers ( very famous dead comic- he was Henry VIII's court jester) acting as compere. Then the penny dropped. How modern. In spite of touches of variety and a hint of masque, it's basically an evening of stand-up comedy.