I hated Hamlet when I first read it, but now I realise it's not that bad. Romeo And Juilet is so-so.

I also like Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing. I prefer his comedies though.

Whatever your preference there's no denying that Shakespeare is probably the greatest every playwright - who else can boast around four and a half centuries of their works being performed in every corner of the globe, and providing inspiration for so many other artistic forms of expression? There are probably very few places on earth where he has not been heard of. Best of all he was English and enriched our language so much - many of our adages and expressions have been lifted directly from his plays.

Christopher Marlowe?

Certainly Marlowe was an inspiration for Shakespeare and there's more than a nod to him in some of Shakespeare's earlier plays. There are even conspiracy theories that Marlowe faked his own death and continued writing under the assumed name of Shakespeare! Marlowe himself was heavily influenced by Edmund Spenser and even guilty of a fair bit of plagiarism.

However Shakespeare, whilst inspired by Marlowe, took his art to a whole new level in my opinion. The only Marlowe's plays I really like are Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great, and of course there are bound to be similarities in style between contemporaries such as Shakespeare, Spenser and Marlowe, but I stand by my assertion that Shakespeare is globally known, whereas the likes of Marlowe and Spenser are not.