Hamnet

The film of Hamnet

The film of Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet has been hugely successful, winning Best Motion Picture, and Best Actress in a Motion Picture for Jessie Buckley in the Golden Globe Awards. The book dramatises the last days of the 11-year old Hamnet Shakespeare and the  relationship of his parents, William and Anne Shakespeare (her alternative name of Agnes is used in the film).

In Stratford-upon-Avon some have questioned whether the film should have been made in the actual buildings where events took place rather than using locations in Herefordshire and Wales.

At its dinner in 1835 Dr John Connolly proposed that the Shakespeare Club should take on the job of preventing the deterioration of the town’s Shakespeare-related sites including the Birthplace, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage and the site of New Place, described as “hallowed ground”.  These ambitions were achieved by the formation of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1847 which gradually acquired the buildings. Decades before the foundation of the National Trust the Shakespeare Club had begun to conserve culturally significant buildings. This has been so successful that hundreds of thousands of people now visit Stratford-upon-Avon but also means that making a feature film would be impossible.

However there is a link between Hamnet and the town. In May 2022, following the success of the book, two rowan trees were planted in the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church as memorials to Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare. The Club’s Secretary attended the dedication of the trees, demonstrating the Club’s continuing interest in places relating to Shakespeare.