‘Who’s There?’ We Don’t Need to Know if Hamnet Inspired ‘Hamlet’

Theatre director and Shakespeare author Stephen Unwin explores our abiding fascination with what the playwright’s life can tell us about the human experience depicted in his plays

The release of Chloé Zhao’s much-hailed film Hamnet, with Paul Mescal as Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway, got me thinking – not just about our perennial fascination with the playwright’s life and beliefs, but the near impossibility of drawing any useful conclusions from his writings.

What does Shakespeare’s life tell us about his plays and what do the plays tell us about the man?

It is a popular myth that everything that can be known about William Shakespeare can be written on the back of a postage stamp. In fact, partly because of his status as a successful playwright and respected poet, but also because of the diligence of scholars eager to discover every last detail, we probably know more about the man than about any other Elizabethan outside the charmed circle of the monarchy or the nobility.