In the following essay, Lagarde discusses similarities between Serjeant Musgrave's Dance and various plays by Shakespeare, notably Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet.

Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, no doubt, may be considered first and foremost as a twentieth century reworking of The Recruiting Officer, inspired or influenced by Brecht's vision of Farquhar's comedy, the 1955 Berlin repertoire production ofPauken und Trompeten, with a few touches from Brecht's own Mutter Courage. Yet, whatever the international influences at play in the world of theatre nowadays, an English dramatist cannot forget he was nurtured on a national tradition which began in the Renaissance and John Arden, who acknowledged his debt to Ben Jonson in The Waters of Babylon, cannot be an exception. Indeed the reader of Serjeant Musgrave's Dance more than once gathers the impression that Shakespeare was pent up in Arden's mind, ready to gush forth, from the moment...