Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel about the Shakespeare family’s loss of a child, was one of the country’s most popular reads during lockdown. A brand-new production of Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaptation of the book is this month reopening the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon... 

Author Maggie O’Farrell scored an unlikely hit when her 2020 novel, Hamnet - which imagines the life of William Shakespeare and the women and family who influenced his work - became an international bestseller. The book sold more than 1.5 million copies, earned umpteen awards - including Waterstones Book of the Year - and became a hugely popular lockdown read, in part because the tragedy at its heart drew parallels with what was happening in the world during the pandemic. 

Set in 1582, the story follows the lives of William Shakespeare (unnamed in the novel) and Anne (in the book, Agnes) Hathaway as they fall in love and start a family. 

William moves to London to forge his career in the world of theatre while Agnes stays at home in Warwickshire to raise their three children. But then tragedy strikes, as their only son, 11-year-old Hamnet, succumbs to the bubonic plague. 

Although the parents largely confront their loss alone, something extraordinary is born out of their suffering - and not just the legendary play that (almost) takes their son’s name... 

A stage adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel will be the first production to be mounted in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s newly restored Swan Theatre, in the heart of the town where the family lived. It couldn’t be more poignant, according to the RSC’s acting artistic director, Erica Whyman, who commissioned and will direct the show.

“Maggie’s beautiful novel moved and inspired me in the darkest days of lockdown, as it did for so many,” she says. “It is especially fitting that this production will reopen the unique Swan Theatre, evoking, as it does, a different time in the town - one that not only gave birth to our house playwright but one which knew what it was to live through waves of pandemic, of grief and recovery.”

The novel has been adapted for the stage by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, best known for her award-winning stage version of Yann Martel’s hugely popular novel, Life Of Pi, which has just transferred to Broadway. Like Hamnet, that book also focused on a child, but one surviving on a lifeboat with a bunch of wild animals. The earthbound tale of Hamnet ought to be an easier one to reimagine for the stage. Or maybe not..

“You’d think so,” laughs actor-turned-playwright Lolita. “There’s no animals anyway… and we’re on land the whole time! But Maggie’s book is so internal and so beautiful - it’s full of nature and internal thought. So that’s the challenge, I suppose.

“I think I’ve got a starter reputation for taking the impossible and making it somehow happen, but it’s always a challenge and a risk; people love these books and have a relationship with them, and then I’m coming in with my version.”

Lolita says it’s been a fascinating task to consider Shakespeare as a man, not a genius, as well as to discover the family behind him and how they influenced his work. But the story itself is clearly much more than a historical biography of the Bard.

“While the facts about the Shakespeare family are limited, this is a universal story about a family’s dynamics, the devastating effects of a child’s death, the necessary reinvention after loss and how new writing is formed. It has been a privilege to recreate and imagine the life of an often forgotten but important figure: Mrs Shakespeare.”

But if Anne Hathaway is a potentially forgotten figure, the novel is still very fresh in people’s minds - something Lolita admits brings an added pressure (she worked on Pi almost 20 years after it came out). Hamnet’s popularity means the play’s 11-week run has already sold out.

“When I took this on, I was thinking, yes, I love Shakespeare, I’ve been in quite a few Shakespeare plays, I’ve studied him quite a lot, and I loved the story, but the impact of the novel has been much more visible because it’s so recent. Everyone I meet has either got it on their shelf, or their mum bought it, or they’re about to read it, or yes, they must read it… the energy behind it is stronger, so it’s been quite daunting.”

Fortunately Lolita has had the support of the “obviously brilliant” Maggie O’Farrell along the way, not least because the pair quickly developed a mutual respect.

“It’s about establishing a relationship, because theatre and novel writing are very different disciplines - and, of course, this is her baby and her story, and she’s done all the research.

“What’s great is that she’s been very respectful and hands-off, but offered her overview and storytelling impulses. When she came into rehearsals, I told her I’m the midwife to your story, but she said ‘No, not at all, we’re co-parents.’ I thought that was a good analysis!”

The analogy works, she says, because unlike a TV or movie adaptation, the stage version effectively becomes the playwright’s interpretation of the book rather than a scene-by-scene recreation.

“With theatre, I feel like I have to ingest the novel, ingest what she’s trying to say, and then produce my own version of it. It’s more about the relationships we see on stage rather than the internal relationships we read about.”

Recreating a novel she’s grown to love in the town where the story is set adds another layer to Lolita’s enjoyment of the project. During her research, she undertook a whistle-stop tour of Stratford’s tourist hot spots, but found that wandering around the town - albeit 300 years after the family lived there - was just as important in getting to know them.

“It’s extraordinary really. Just walking the streets and thinking of them, the Shakespeares, walking the same streets, is a very different experience to reading about it.

“I thought of Shakespeare because Maggie’s book gives us the man, and his wife, and his children, and I thought, gosh, if he came back now and saw this theatre that only performs his plays, what would he think? 

“Performing the show here will make it live in a very immediate way which I don’t think you’d get anywhere else. I hope audiences will think they’ve met Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway.

by Steve Adams