Shakespeare’s wife is brought out of the shadows in Lolita Chakrabarti’s loving, wistful adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, a lockdown hit that suggested the loss of the couple’s son Hamnet to plague inspired the writing of Hamlet. Erica Whyman’s production, her swansong after a decade with the Royal Shakespeare Company, is initially stiff and slow but weaves a beguiling narrative web around the creation of human life, of art, and of a family unit as a refuge.
Madeleine Mantock’s spirited Anne Hathaway – actually Agnes, pronounced Ann-yes – is in her mid 20s, a seer and a naturopath thought by some to be a witch, when she first meets impecunious teenage Latin teacher William Shakespeare (Tom Varey). They feel a powerful erotic attraction and Agnes has premonitory visions of their children: their first, Susannah, is conceived before they are “handfasted” (pledged); twins Judith and Hamnet after they are married. But Agnes sees only two children in their future…
