All is True – at Thame Cinema

SCREENING in association with Thame Art and Literature Festival, this is an affectionate, wry and slightly melancholy contemplation of the later life of William Shakespeare.

It is 1613, and the Globe theatre has burned down during a production of Henry the VIII (All is True) because of a misfiring canon. Will decides it is time to pull up stumps and return home to reflect on his long career and spend more time with his family. But what he imagines as a peaceful retirement is, instead, a process of reckoning with long neglected familial tensions and regrets.

A mixture of fact and fiction, and written by Ben Elton – whose Upstart Crow for the BBC also goes behind the scenes of the domestic life of Shakespeare – this film eschews all-out bawdy comedy of that programme in favour of a more wistful and poignant take on late middle age, regret, and grief. The emotional heart of the narrative is the death of Anne and William’s son, Hammet Shakespeare, 17 years earlier at the age of 11, a loss that William has never confronted and from which Anne has never recovered. Also at stake is the question of parenting, and the consequence of one parent’s pursuit of fame and glamour at the expense of those left behind, notably Dench’s Anne Hathaway, and their cranky and resentful daughter Judith.

You really cannot go wrong with a cast of this calibre, and Branagh’s film delivers all that you might expect of great writing, masterful storytelling, and exceptional performances. And you might learn something about Shakespeare’s celebrated 2nd best bed. View trailer .

Saturday October 19, 8pm – All is True – UK, 2018, 100 minutes, 12A certificate – Director Kenneth Branagh; Starring Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen
Please note: Tickets for this event must be purchased from the TAL website or box office: for details of how to buy a ticket visit https://talfestival.org/box-office-details/