Trump slams Shakespeare as "rubbish"

In a series early morning posts on what surely must be the most ironically named of all social media sewers, Donald Trump has turned his thoughts to William Shakespeare, branding The Bard of Avon as, "A stoopid Limey who wrote a bunch of crap."

Commenting on Much Ado About Nothing Trump writes, "Well ain't that just the truth?" And in another rather petulant post he asks, "Who the hell was this Henry guy? Seven goddamn plays about him when surely one would've been enough."

Passing judgement on All's Well That Ends Well, Trump's verdict was, "Huh. I thought that steaming pile of dogshit was never gonna end at all."

But perhaps and unsurprisingly, the great and the good of British theatre have been flocking to Social Media all day to defend, some say, Britain's greatest ever writer. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, Sir Kenneth Branagh commented: 'The mind boggles at depth of this Trump's total ignorance - and what's more, methinks he doth protest too much.'