SHAKES' TO CORE

IN JULIUS Caesar, William Shakespeare counsels the audience to embrace life without fear, writing: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”.

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HAMNET CERT 12A, IN CINEMAS NOW

Here, the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon heeds his own iambic pentameter in director Chloé Zhao's exquisitely moving drama, adapted for screen by Zhao and Irish author Maggie O'Farrell from her novel about Shakespeare's descent into grief with wife Agnes after the death of their beloved 11-year-old son.

The picture opens in pastoral bliss with Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) falling under the spell of Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), rumoured to be the daughter of a forest witch. “I would rather you went to sea than marry this wench,” spits William's disapproving mother, Mary (Emily Watson).

Regardless, the couple raise a family comprising daughter Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). When William is working in London, bubonic plague ravages the household.

Heartbreaking loss divides William and his wife, and the playwright channels emotions onto parchment as he prepares to stage the tragedy of a Danish prince driven to madness by his father's ghost.