Start quoting him now

It's Will.i.am Shakespeare’s 450th birthday today (the date is actually unknown, but appropriately enough someone decided the celebrations should coincide with St George's Day - funny, that!).

Whatever the truth, it is (from scant pictorial evidence) highly unlikely that The Bard was anything like as sexy as he was portrayed by the sultry Joseph Fiennes in the hit movie...

Let us celebrate England's finest writer today, not with poetry, but with music. From Cole Porter's classic, "Shakespeare the Musical" Kiss Me Kate, here's Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore with Brush Up Your Shakespeare (of course):

Brush Up Your Shakespeare (Kiss Me, Kate! - 1953)

The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry,
So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides.
But the poet of them all
Who will start 'em simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The bard of Stratford-on-Avon.

Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
And they think you're a heckuva fella.
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer,
And if still, to be shocked, she pretends well,
Just remind her that "All's Well That Ends Well."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.

Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
If your goil is a Washington Heights dream
Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night Dream."
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,
What are clothes? "Much Ado About Nussing."
If she says your behaviour is heinous
Kick her right in the "Coriolanus."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow,
And they'll all kowtow,
And they'll all kowtow.

Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.

Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.

Will Shakespeare's birthday celebrations

10 things you didn't know about William Shakespeare