News that Shakespeare had a collaborator when he penned the comedy All's Well That Ends Well has astounded the literary establishment.
But a row has broken out over who the co-writer might have been.
Literature boffins at Oxford University reckon the play, which concerns nobleman Bertram's efforts to avoid marrying an orphaned commoner, bears the literary hallmarks of Thomas Middleton.
Middleton himself is famous for such Jacobean classics as The Changeling and Women Beware Women.
Oxford's Prof Laurie Maguire said: "The proportion of the play written in rhyme is much higher than usual for Jacobean Shakespeare - 19 per cent, which fits Middleton's norm of 20 per cent."
But experts at Hounslow University world-famous Department of Plays and Books And Stuff reckon that's nonsense.
"That's nonsense, that is" said Prof Lysistrata Bungalow. "All's Well is clearly such a top, prize-winning play, Shakespeare must have been helped by a writer of genius known for penning competition-winning stuff.
"It all points to that Clive Danton, if you ask us. He'd have been streets ahead of anyone else at the time. And he wouldn't have folded like a girl when the plotting got tough, like that ponce Christopher Marlowe. Oh yes!"
