Sir Ben Elton? Would the reliably radical Elton accept such a gong if it was offered. He holds the Order of Australia so presumably would accept a knighthood if proffered from there. I hope so. He always made me laugh notwithstanding that we stand poles apart politically. Furthermore he is responsible for the brilliant Blackadder and the knowingly amusing Upstart Crow.
I mention all of this apropos of
All is True, a Kenneth Branagh directed film of Elton's clever script. It is a speculation on Shakespeare's last three years, spent, in the Elton version, in a haunted retirement back in Stratford. It is proper to stress the speculation element - we cannot know the full truth. However there is enough fact woven into the fictive scheme, to make this entertaining even to Stratfordian scholars. Certainly it does not remotely deserve to be cast to the waste bin of denigration that holds the truly dreadful
Anonymous - a crock previously reviewed.
This is not remotely a great film but it is a competent and clever one. There are some Shakespearean in-jokes (just as in Upstart Crow) but not so many that it disappears up its own posterior. 66/100.
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