Taking place during playwright William Shakespeare’s “lost years” where Shakespeare left no historical traces of his life between the birth of his twin children in 1585 and 1592, the movie explores how a lowly lute player known as Bill leaves Stratford-Upon-Avon to follow his dreams in London and becomes the illustrious William Shakespeare.
Richard Bracewell's Elizabethan-era comedy, starring the cast of Horrible Histories and Yonderland, is brisk, cheery fare that yields as many laughs as it does groans.
It's knockabout stuff, a long way from the elegant wit of Tom Stoppard's Shakespeare in Love but performed with infectious gusto by the multiple-role-playing cast.
Nicely balancing its historically literate gags with broad knockabout slapstick, Bill is a crowd-pleasing treat that should tickle audiences young and old alike.
A Horrible Histories film by any other name, Bill sees the cast of the popular CBBC show unite for a daft, affectionate take on the rise-to-fame years of William Shakespeare.
