Boris Johnson & Bottom on a Midsummer Night!

Spot the difference?

by Brian Bamford

IT is difficult not to compare Boris Johnson's current plight and his lover's 'tiff' to that of the weaver Nick Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Jan Moir in yesterday's Daily Mail wrote: 'Amid this velvety foliage, the star crossed couple sat at a teak table, one that was as weathered as time itself.' Of Boris and his lover Carrie Symonds, who following their altercation posed photographed playing footsie under the green wood trees in Sussex, Ms. Moir adds: 'Their secluded garden was suitably fecund with 50 shades of green, in a sanctuary that had grown as wild as their crazy stupid love.'

The scene is so remarkably reminiscent of the famous Shakespeare play!

Of Nick Bottom see what one pundit writes:

'Whereas Puck’s humor is often mischievous and subtle, the comedy surrounding the overconfident weaver Nick Bottom is hilariously overt. The central figure in the subplot involving the craftsmen’s production of the Pyramus and this be story, Bottom dominates his fellow actors with an extraordinary belief in his own abilities (he thinks he is perfect for every part in the play) and his comical incompetence (he is a terrible actor and frequently makes rhetorical and grammatical mistakes in his speech).  The humor surrounding Bottom often stems from the fact that he is totally unaware of his own ridiculousness; his speeches are overdramatic and self-aggrandizing, and he seems to believe that everyone takes him as seriously as he does himself.  This foolish self-importance reaches its pinnacle after Puck transforms Bottom’s head into that of an ass.  When Titania, whose eyes have been anointed with a love potion, falls in love with the now ass-headed Bottom, he believes that the devotion of the beautiful, magical fairy queen is nothing out of the ordinary and that all of the trappings of her affection, including having servants attend him, are his proper due.  His unawareness of the fact that his head has been transformed into that of an ass parallels his inability to perceive the absurdity of the idea that Titania could fall in love with him.'

Nick Bottom and Boris Johnson are, it seems, like as two peas in a pod.

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