In some of Earth’s most ancient cultures, it is said the soul can never fully be at rest if the body is un-whole. Poor Shakespeare is missing his skull, and his soul might thus be trapped in some kind of weird Valhalla purgatory where he is compelled to club fight the same thug over and over again until his skull is reunited with the rest of his bleached skeleton.

We, at The Arcturus Project, are here to help. Based upon our belligerent preliminary research, my Guests and I propose the following unhinged scenario and vicious plan:

1) We build a time machine and fly back to 1794 where we will intercept the grave robbers on site. Rather than liquidate them immediately, as my Guests desire, we will preserve the timeline by sedating them, giving them a fake skull, and returning the original skull to the grave with the thieves none the wiser.

We’re on it, bro!

2) Should we fail in our attempt to fold space and time via a machine, we’ll have to buckle down and search in today’s realm. Naturally our first stop will be Derek Jacobi’s hallowed mansion. As the foremost headman of the Anti-Stratfordian Faction, surely he’ll know the secret whereabouts of the skull as his cult has undoubtedly kept it hidden for centuries to further cloud the memory of the author who they claim is surely a fraud. Should we fail in our brutal interrogation of Jacobi, taken in by his charm, gentlemanly behavior, and delightful ability to star & seriously act in even the most C-grade of hack garbage movies, we’ll have no choice to resort to more ridiculous methods.

Derek Jacobi, in the Oscar nominated Underworld: Evolution

3) We’ll begin by exhuming Shakespeare’s entire skeleton, a process that might result in the complete destruction of Holy Trinity Church, but whatever, omelets need making. Then we use the DNA from the skeleton to clone Shakespeare. Once the clone reaches the age of 52, we summary put him to death, and harvest his skull. We then rebuild Holy Trinity Church, put the original skeleton back in the tomb, and add the Clone Shakespeare’s skull into the tomb as well.

4) As a caveat, we don’t know the rules of Valhalla. We’ve never been there. So it’s possible that because the skull is a clone skull, that this won’t work. And Shakespeare’s soul would still be trapped. So next what we’d have to do is use the most invasive of surveillance methods to catalog the location of every 17th century skull in the British Isles. We’ll be able to tell what skull is from this era by detecting the presence, at the molecular level, of frilly cravat material common in this age, such as that seen gracing the neck and skull of Her Majesty:

Then we’ll use DNA tracing (see first part of Plan 3) to analyze millions of skulls until we find the right one. Then we’ll but that skull back in the church and (hopefully) manage to put back all the millions of other skulls too.

X) In the event Plan 4 becomes logistically impossible, we’ll have to activate Plan X. My Guests & I fly to Stratford-upon-Avon, and descend upon the Hamlet’s Determination Ale House. We drink until we come up with a better plan to solve this most pressing of the planet’s problems.

I’m banking on Plan X. However, if you wish to personally assist us in this most noble of quests, specifically Plans 1-4, please kindly provide us a bit of seed money by posting check, cash, or money order to the following address:

The Arcturus Project – Shakespeare Reclamation Branch

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

Your cooperation, as always, is very truly appreciated.

Mel’s got it.  Mel’s got it!