Hello film fans, I’m Kris Grainger, podcast producer and your host for this latest episode of the Eccleshall Community Cinema podcast. I’m delighted to bring you news of our next screening, Hamnet, featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Irish actress, Jessie Buckley. More on that later, but before I welcome my co-hosts…

Joining Keith and I, as Keith was swanning off when we had the screening of The Choral, is our script writer and occasional guest co-host, she has a film PhD so we know we’re in good hands today

Hamnet is a drama based on a historical novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It reimagines the life of William Shakespeare and his family. It’s really the story of the death of William and Anne’s son, Hamnet, and how personal tragedy can be transformed into great art, in this case, the play Hamlet.

O’Farrell said that while studying Hamlet at school, she learned that Shakespeare had had a son named Hamnet who died before the play was written. She was struck by how closely the names “Hamlet” and “Hamnet” resemble each other, and began wondering what it might have meant for a father to write a play so similar to his dead son’s name, and how the boy’s mother would have felt about it.

For more information on the screening, please check out our Facebook page, “Eccleshall Community Cinema Club”. There’s more information in the show notes, where you’ll also find our email address to join the mailing list or comment on the podcast. The date for your diary is Thursday 21st May at 7:30pm, upstairs at The Royal Oak on Eccleshall High Street. Tickets for Hamnet are £5—that’s more value than you can Shakespeare a stick at!

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