Funny / Shakespeare in Love

• Shakespeare's epic shrug◊ when asked where his pages are.
• Chasing after Viola to find out about this Thomas Kent fellow, Shakespeare decides to climb up the rose vines to Viola's balcony. Just when audiences think we're about to see a re-staging of the infamous balcony scene from the play... it's the nurse who catches Shakespeare climbing up, and both are freaked out by the surprise.
• During the opening audition for Romeo And Ethel the Pirate's Daughter, every would-be performer auditions by using the same lines from Marlowe's Faustus, which annoys Shakespeare to no end. The icing on the cake is his look of disbelief when Henslowe immediately approves the audition of Wabash, who has a pronounced stutter; he explains to Shakespeare that Wabash is his tailor, and he promised him a role as a favour (presumably in place of payment for clothes).
• Just the very idea that all of English literature is awaiting the epic that is "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter."
  "...see, there's this pirate..."
• Ned's reaction to learning about Mercutio's death.
  ...He dies?
• How Shakespeare gets Ned to take the part in the first place:
  Will: [Your character's] name is Mercutio.
  Ned: What's the name of the play?
  Will: Mercutio.
  Henslowe: It is?
  Will: Shh!
• The London cabbies, in rowing boats.
  Boatman: I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once.
• The boatman rolling his eyes at Shakespeare's Purple Prose.
  Boatman: Writer, is he?
  Shakespeare: ROW YOUR BOAT!
• Shakespeare, heartbroken at the knowledge that he and Viola can't be together, tells the troupe that he's rewritten the plot of the play, and the viewer recognizes the familiar story; the lovers are separated, and due to a tragic misunderstanding they both commit suicide. The actors sit in hushed silence, clearly affected by this turn in events...except for Henslowe, who was promised a comedy; he sarcastically muses: "Well, that should have them rolling in the aisles."
• Burbage and his troupe storm the Rose over Shakespeare's attempted seduction of Rosaline and taking payment for a play he has already given to the other company; Henslowe's first reaction when fighting breaks out on the stage is to furrow his brow and leaf through the script, clearly thinking "I don't remember this scene..."
• Shakespeare starts panicking when it looks like things are going to go wrong from the start with the premiere of Romeo and Juliet. Just as his fears are calmed when Wabash overcomes his stutter and delivers a brilliant opening, they flare right back up when it turns out that 'Juliet's' voice has suddenly broken:
  Sam: Master Shakespeare!
  Shakespeare: I'll be with you, Sam- (Double Take) S-Sam...
  Sam: (tearfully) It's not my fault, Master Shakespeare; I could do it yesterday!
  Shakespeare: Do me a speech. D-do me a line!
  Sam: (voice cracking twice) Parting is such sweet sorrow.
  Shakespeare: *squeak of horrified despair*
  • Henslowe unsuccessfully attempts to calm him down:
  Henslowe: The show must... you know... (trails off aimlessly)
  Shakespeare: Go on?!
  Henslowe: Juliet does not come on for twenty pages; it will be all right.
  Shakespeare: How will it?!
  Henslowe: I don't know; it's a mystery!
• Pretty much everything involving the bloodthirsty young scamp, John Webster (who would grow up to become a writer of particularly gruesome tragedies), ESPECIALLY the scene where he tips off Mr. Tilney about Viola performing in drag:
  Viola: Nobody knew.
  Webster: (pointing at Shakespeare) He did! I saw him kissing her bubbies!
• While the Admiral's Men are busy drowning their sorrows following Tilney closing the Rose, Ralph decides that he's not working, downs his drink, and passes out then and there.
• As Lord Wessex and Viola leave the church, a flyer for Romeo and Juliet hits him in the face, blown there by the wind.
• When Shakespeare changes the premise of the play, someone asks Ralph (one of the actors) if he thinks is anything funny is going on.
  Ralph: I was a Pirate King, and now I'm a Nurse. That's funny.
• Later, a prostitute asks Ralph to tell her about the play, and he claims that the nurse is the main character to impress her.
• When Tilney closes down the theater, he initially mistakes the male actor playing Juliet for the woman illegally performing on stage and pulls up his dress to try and prove it.
• When Tilney shows up during the final performance, saying there is a woman on the stage, Ralph (in his nurse costume) acts as if he thinks they're talking about him.
• When Elizabeth is leaving the theatre, she looks pointedly down at a mud puddle laying between her and her carriage. Cue her looking to the assembled men and they all begin to try to remove their cloaks to lay down for her, only for her to get aggravated and walk across the puddle and muddy her dress, saying "Too late....Too late..."