Plays

Question 1

Proteus loves Julia and his friend Valentine loves Sylvia.Proteus gets Valentine outlawed in order to pursue Sylvia himself.

His page Sebastian is actually Julia in disguise.

After much trouble, everyone ends up with their original beloved.

Answer 1

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (comedy)

Question 2

Falstaff goes after two women at the same time. They find out about each other and make him a laughing stock.

Answer 2

The Merry Wives of Windsor (comedy)

Question 3

Magician Prosperous shipwrecks the enemies that originally ousted him from Italy.

His daughter Miranda falls in love with the son of his arch rival.

Prosperous faces down his enemies and learns to forgive.

Answer 3

The Tempest (comedy)

Question 4

The Duke of Vienna is absent, so his deputy Angelo resurrects arcane fornication laws.

Angelo is busted trying to pressure a nun in to sex, by the Duke in disguise as a friar.

Answer 4

Measure for Measure (comedy)

Question 5

Friends Antiphilus and Dromeo are separated in a shipwreck as babies. They head to Ephesus to search for their twin brothers.

Much confusion for wives and friends, then their parents appear and sort it all out.

Answer 5

The Comedy of Errors (comedy)

Question 6

In Sicily, Claudio and Hero are cruelly tricked and parted.

Benedict and Beatrice fight and fall in love.

Deceptions and disguises are uncovered by a hapless night-watchman and harmonious order is restored with marriages and jigging.

Answer 6

Much Ado About Nothing (comedy)

Question 7

The King and 3 friends swear off women for three years, just before a beautiful princess arrives with her ladies. Love letter mix-ups and shenanigans. All 4 break their oaths.

Answer 7

Love’s Labours Lost (comedy)

Question 8

Mistaken administering of “Love Juice” results in Titania, Queen of the Faeries falling for the ass, Bottom.

Two sets of couples get confused in the woods, before the natural order of things is restored.

Answer 8

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (comedy)

Question 9

Antonio makes a risky deal - leveraging a pound of his own flesh - to support friend Basanio’s pursuit of Portia.

When Shylock calls in his debt, Portia, dressed as a man, successfully fights Antonio’s case in a court of law with an ingenious defence.

Answer 9

The Merchant of Venice (comedy)

Question 10

The exile of brothers, Dukes, fathers, daughters, cousins and clowns to the benign bubble of the Forest of Ardennes leads to disguise, gender-bending and happy marriages for all.

Answer 10

As You Like It (comedy)

Question 11

Stroppy Catarina stands in the way of her more pliable sister Bianca’s marriage.

Bianca’s suitors persuade fortune hunter Petruchio to marry Catarina and embark on a campaign of mental cruelty that “tames” her.

Everyone is left content and happily married.

Answer 11

The Taming of the Shrew (comedy)

Question 12

Twins Viola and Sebastian lose each other after a shipwreck and believing each other to be dead become the servants of amorous Illyrian nobles.

Much disguise and a yellow stocking-themed subplot before they are finally reunited.

Answer 12

Twelfth Night (or ‘As You Will’) (comedy)

Question 13

King Leonte’s jealous madness leads to the demise of his children and the death by grief of his wife.

Happily, many years later it is revealed that his wife and daughter are both alive, and all are reconciled.

Answer 13

The Winter’s Tale (comedy)

Question 14

Pericles competes for a wife, and then loses her and his new-born daughter in a shipwreck.

Many years later he is reunited with them after his wife becomes a priestess and his daughter a virginal prostitute.

Answer 14

Pericles

Question 15

Friends Palamon and Arcite fall out over their love for Emilia, but an unbindable horse means Palamon eventually gets the girl.

Answer 15

The Two Noble Kinsmen

Question 16

King John is threatened by an angry nephew, the King of France, and a Cardinal, and is finally murdered by a malcontent monk.

Answer 16

King John (history)

Question 17

Proud, long-serving King Richard is finally undone by ambitious Henry Bolingbrook, his own vanity, and a penchant for land-grabbing.

Answer 17

Richard II (history)

Question 18

Henry Bollingbrook is now King Henry but enjoyment of his reign is undermined by his son Hal and his associations with the drunkard Falstaff and the rebellion of Henry Percy (nicknamed ‘Hotspur’) who is eventually killed by Hal.

Answer 18

Henry IV, Pt. 1 (history)

Question 19

Hotspur’s father avenges his son’s death by threatening to cause civil war.

Henry’s health declines and on his deathbed he makes peace with his errant son, Hal, who rejects his pal Falstaff and prepares to take the crown as Henry V.

Answer 19

Henry IV, Pt. 2 (history)

Question 20

Henry decides to start his reign with a punchy request to rule France, which is rejected.

After glorious victory at Agincourt, Princess Catherine of France marries him and the countries are bound together.

Answer 20

Henry V (history)

Question 21

Orphan Helena is determined to have her man, Bertram, even is he doesn’t want her. She tricks him in to impregnating her by pretending to be Diana. Bertram is impressed by her tactic and agrees to be a good husband to her.

Answer 21

All’s Well That Ends Well (comedy)

Question 22

Young Henry struggles to live up to his heroic father despite dealing successfully with Joan of Arc, although less successfully with his own dastardly Dukes.

Answer 22

Henry VI, Pt. 1 (history)

Question 23

Henry fails to control his nobles, which leads to the War of the Roses.

Answer 23

Henry VI, Pt. 2 (history)

Question 24

Henry loses his throne, regains it, solliloquises on a molehill, loses the throne again and is stabbed to death by the future Richard III.

Answer 24

Henry VI, Pt. 3 (history)

Question 25

Hunchback uber-villain has his brother drown in a barrel of wine, his nephews (the ‘princes in the tower’) murdered, poisons his wife, is surprised when people start to turn against him and then gets killed in battle by the future King Henry VII after inconveniently losing his horse.

Answer 25

Richard III (history)

Question 26

Henry meets and falls in love with Anne Boleyn, ousting his current wife and crowning Anne as Queen, and allowing Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to predict great things at the birth of his daughter Elizabeth.

Answer 26

Henry VIII (history)

Question 27

Troilus falls in love with the daughter of a Trojan priest. After a single night of passion he loses her to the Greeks outside the city’s walls.

Cue: much teeth nashing and revenge.

Answer 27

Troilus and Cressida (tragedy)

Question 28

Martial hero, Coriolanus, saves Rome from invasion and is persuaded to run for consul by his manipulative mother.

His people turn on him and he is banished. He is dissuaded from exacting revenge, and finally murdered by the invaders.

Answer 28

Coriolanus (tragedy)

Question 29

Roman General Titus is frustrated when his captive and arch enemy Timura, Queen of the Goths, marries the Emperor.

Murder, rape, mutilation, cannibalism and infanticide leave pretty much everyone dead.

Answer 29

Titus Andronicus (tragedy)

Question 30

Unsupportive relatives ruin young lovers’ bliss, leading to a fatal fake suicide mix up.

Answer 30

Romeo and Juliet (tragedy)

Question 31

Generous playboy Timen gets in to debt and leaves Athens to make his home in a cave.

He discovers mounds of gold and dies after realising that his only true friend is his servant, Flavius.

Answer 31

Timen of Athens (tragedy)

Question 32

Worthy Roman Brutus is concerned about his dictator friend’s political intentions and gets caught up in a conspiracy that ends with him stabbing Caesar.

He is then driven to suicide by his rival, Marc Anthony, ‘s superior oratory and tactics.

Answer 32

Julius Caesar

Question 33

Macbeth receives a prophecy from the three Weird Sisters that he will be King of Scotland, and his murderously ambitious wife helps him to achieve his dream.

Answer 33

Macbeth (tragedy)

Question 34

Listless student Prince Hamlet is traumatised by his villainous uncle Claudius’ fratricide.

He is instructed by the ghost of his father to feign insanity, sending his gf Ophelia loopy.

A catastrophic poison and fencing blood-bath.

Answer 34

Hamlet (tragedy)

Question 35

Old King Lear makes a mistake in celebrating his bad daughters and exiling his truest child, Cordelia.

He then goes mad on a stormy heath and dies with Cordelia’s expired body in his arms.

Answer 35

King Lear (tragedy)

Question 36

Moorish Venetian General skips off to Cyprus with his beloved wife Desdemona and apparent best friend Iago.

Iago makes it his mission to destroy their lives using only a handkerchief and a lot of insinuation.

Answer 36

Othello (tragedy)

Question 37

Mark Anthony neglects his duties in favour of a passionate affair with Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, incurring Caesar’s wrath and resulting in their bloody double suicide by sword and by asp-bite.

Answer 37

Anthony and Cleopatra (tragedy)

Question 38

British King Cymbelline is encouraged his evil Queen to banish his daughter Imogen’s secret husband.

Imogen resists various ensuing attempts on her life. All is sorted out in the end.

Answer 38

Cymbelline (tragedy)