Please Enjoy This Hilarious Video of Tom Hiddleston Sing-Dancing a Shakespearean Love Sonnet

2 minute read

As Taymerica heals from the news that Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston have reportedly split, it’s high time to visit Hiddleston in character onstage as the jauntiest lovebird who ever lived.

In this YouTube video of his 2007 performance in the Cheek by Jowl production of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, he plays Cloten, total funny clown who’s obsessed with Imogen.

For the role, the thespian did his wacky best in a hilarious song bursting with remarkable energy. It’s your standard Elizabethan-era-under-the-window-seduction-scenario, and your boy Cloten (Hiddleston) arranges his face, body and voice into ridiculous expressions communicating pure love and insanity as he tries to win Imogen’s heart.

While his turn as the classic fool is completely unrelated to the current news, it is an essential delight from the vault of things the Marvel actor used to do. Hiddleston’s strong heart demonstrates itself most dramatically with some highly amusing fancy footwork at the end. (For background, here’s how some people sang this Shakespeare tune. But not Tom. No, Tom had other plans)

The human heart is a mystery that not even the Bard can nail down. But watch this below. May it enliven the conversation surrounding the end of one love story, with hope for another.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com