I love Shakespeare. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that on this blog? Longtime readers please correct me, but I don’t think I’ve written any posts on Shakespeare before? Nevertheless, I felt compelled to write this review of the recent historical drama Hamnet, adapted from a book by Maggie O’Farrell, which is all about Shakespeare’s wife and the loss of their son.

For full disclosure, I’ve not read the novel and, while I’ve read and seen the play Hamlet a couple of times, it’s not a play I’m intimately familiar with. In Austin, Texas, where I grew up, there is a program at the University of Texas called Shakespeare-at-Winedale. I was lucky enough to take part in their outreach program for teens, so I spent my childhood summers acting in Shakespeare plays in a big barn with other nerdy kids. Pure bliss. I just looked it up and the program I took part in – Camp Shakespeare – is still running! Shakespeare Camp is all about “play” and encountering Shakespeare through performing the text and bringing it to life with other people. It taught me so much and instilled in me a deep love for Shakespeare, which I carried with me all through university (when, for example, I was in a production of Macbeth in a ruined 14th century Scottish abbey!).