R and I went to the cinema today – we think quite possibly for the first time since the pandemic – to see Hamnet. It was outstanding – lyrical, beautiful, and heartbreaking – and I wept through quite a bit of it. If you haven’t already seen it, I can’t recommend it too strongly, and if there’s any justice in the world, Jessie Buckley will add an Oscar to her Golden Globe next weekend. Paul Mescal was also very watchable as Shakespeare, and Jacobi and Noah Jupe – younger and elder brothers playing Hamnet and Hamlet respectively – both seem like faces to look out for in the future.
By the time we came out of the cinema, both quite pink around the eyes, we were in severe need of a pick-me-up, so we had coffee and cake and then did the between-the-bridges circular walk beside the Avon. Hamnet was mostly filmed in Herefordshire, which looks far more Elizabethan these days than Stratford (there isn’t a single building in this view that Shakespeare would recognise), but it still feels somehow appropriate to post an image of the town to mark the day.
R: L2. C6, D9.
