[3] The play reopened in the West End at the Apollo Theatre for a ten-week season from 23 September until 3 December 2022, with Mitchell and Gemma Whelan reprising the roles of William Shakespeare and Kate.

A pair of noble Egyptian twins recall Twelfth Night — as does the humiliation-by-codpiece of Mark Heap’s lovestruck puritan — and also spark the idea for Othello.

Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian: "Punchlines and slapstick are meticulously timed, culminating in a spectacular sight-gag involving costumes...including a bear suit, an unfeasibly large codpiece and an escalatingly testicular pair of the baggy-thighed trousers.

"[7] In the Daily Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish wrote, "Ben Elton has restored himself to favour in theatreland with this joyously silly spin-off to his much-loved BBC Shakespeare sitcom.

"[2] Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard called it, "funny but exhausting", and said: "You can spot the mile-off joke about The Winter’s Tale the moment the dancing bear appears.