In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?’ This question was asked in a series of verbal and written interviews over the course of May 2024-August 2024, which very quickly spiralled into a larger thought experiment. During this time, there was a series of events that very significantly shifted the political conversation. To name just a few; the UK had a general election, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, and Trump was nearly assassinated (which occurred in a semi-media blackout as many topical news programmes were on hiatus).  The question was initially devised in February 2023, taking partial inspiration from the political context of the previous years –Boris Johnson’s premiership, Donald Trump, Liz Truss and the cost-of-living-crisis - coupled with thoughts on a lyric from Stephen Sondheim’s 1964 political satire Anyone Can Whistle (‘laugh at the kings or they’ll make you cry’ – Everybody Says Don’t).