Shakespeare in Love

One refers to Shakespeare in Love as Stoppard's work, but the script names as co-author the American screenwriter Marc Norman, who had the original idea. Well, originality isn't so significant in this area. Especially as the seeds of the film can be found in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, the 1910 Bernard Shaw one-act play (a polemic for a national theatre), in which Shakespeare meets Queen Elizabeth while courting one of her ladies-in-waiting and carries a notebook to record useful lines, among them the accusation that he's 'a snapper up of unconsidered trifles'.

With the possible exception of The Tempest, Shakespeare never invented a plot, and there is something Shakespearean in the relationship between Norman, whose principal credits are Cutthroat Island, Waterworld and Oklahoma Crude, and the author of Jumpers, Travesties and The Invention of Love. I'm reminded of a 1961 Jak cartoon (the only truly funny one he ever drew) depicting four convicts standing in front of a gaping hole in a prison wall, three of them gorilla-like thugs, the fourth the diminutive, sagacious Bertrand Russell, then serving time for anti-nuclear activities. A warder, arms akimbo, is demanding: 'All right! For the last time, who's the brains behind this?'

The setting is 1593 and Shakespeare (the dashing Joseph Fiennes), then little-known, faces a writer's block over the comedy 'Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter', which is desperately needed by the cash-strapped Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush doing a whining Baldrick act) for his Rose Theatre. Through some clever plotting he meets a new muse, Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), spirited daughter of nouveau-riche parents, who auditions for the role of Romeo disguised as a man. At the same time he crosses the penniless Earl of Wessex (Colin Firth), who is about to marry Viola and take her to Virginia. Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench), who has approved the marriage, has compelled Wessex into a wager of £50, to go to anyone who can write a play about the true nature of love.

Apart from the humorous wordplay and farcical misunderstandings, there are essentially three kinds of jokes in Shakespeare in Love. The first are the Pythonesque anachronisms, some good, some weak. For instance, Shakespeare goes to an Elizabethan shrink (Antony Sher) and indulges in some childish double entendre. Rather better is the ferryman who, after being ordered to 'Follow that boat', tells Will that 'I had that Kit Marlowe in the boat once'. Best of all is the Queen, like her twentieth-century namesake, delighting in a clown wrestling with a dog and nodding off when the poetry starts. Or the money-lender Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) preparing a Hollywood-style contract that will give the playwright a share of the profits, and adding with a malicious grin: 'There never are any profits.'

The second kind of jokes are the scholarly ones that appeal to the smart grammar school sixth-former lurking within us all. We're made to feel good about how well we know Shakespeare and his world. The insecure Will receives valuable advice on plotting from the confident, better-known Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett), and comes across a conspiratorial, bloodthirsty urchin, who will grow up to be the Jacobean tragedian John Webster. We hear a puritan in the streets preaching a plague on both theatre houses as Shakespeare runs past. Stoppard has always had a taste for bawdy, and when Will has just had an orgasm while making love to Viola, he's given Juliet's line: 'Stay but a little, I will come again'. You don't, of course, need to be a sixth-former or scholar to follow or enjoy the witty way an initially dim pirate comedy is transmuted into a romantic tragedy.

The third source of humour derives from the self-regarding world of the theatre: the rehearsals that go wrong; the vain thespian (Ben Affleck) lured into playing the second male lead by being told the play is called Mercutio; the chronic stammerer who speaks fluently when he gets on stage. Much of this back-stage stuff is pretty familiar, but there is a wonderful first-night exchange between manager and playwright. Fennyman (flustered): 'The play must, you know...' Shakespeare (impatiently): 'Go on!'

The strength of Shakespeare in Love, however, is the way the farce and the knowing humour are combined with a real feeling for love, friendship and the community of the theatre, which results in the film being deeply affecting as well as funny. We truly believe that Shakespeare is profoundly moved by the death of Marlowe. And there's a haunting beauty to the final long-held, high-angle shot of Viola walking from the sea across a seemingly endless beach in the New World, that kept the audience in their seats as the end credits rolled. The film's quality is a tribute to the actors, the writers and the director, John Madden, as well as the gifted team of cinematographer Richard Greatrex, composer Stephen Warbeck, editor David Gamble, and designers Martin Childs and Sandy Powell.