WATCHING HAMNET

There are now three exceptional pieces of dramatic and literary art centring on the father-son relationships in the life and work of English dramatist William Shakepeare.

Historians of England anchor epochs in the country’s history to the names of monarchs. Shakespeare worked as an actor and dramatist in London, entertaining the court of Elizabeth 1. His most widely known tragedy, and perhaps the most famous play in English, is Hamlet (1602), a revenge drama notable for the high body count in the final scene, comparable to the ultra-kill last scene of L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997).

The play’s the thing that excites a novel and a film into existence.

A novel focusses on the earth-mother character of Agnes, who marries Shakespeare and with whom she has children, including a son called Hamnet (novel, Maggie O’ Farrell, Tinder Press, 2020). This boy is the character that O’Farrell uses to drive the plot towards a final sequence where the ‘play within the novel’ device is used to tantalise the reader with an earnest of opposition to death.

A film Hamnet (Chloe Zhao, 2025) takes the novel and creates a visual and aural wonder, on a semi-dark palette of autumn and forest colours, with intimate speech sounds, whisperings and murmurings, birthing roars and screeches, in forest and bedroom, and the whistling calls of falcons, as they hunt. 

The boy walks into darkness at the end. The mother laughs. 

Tragedy is defeated, in the only way it can be. By laughing, full-throated, in its heartless face.

Shakespeare worked in a time of torrid upheaval, in a country where adventurers and war-makers plundered great wealth and brought it to the Court and the city in London. Much like America today. Hollywood now, London then: that’s where money accumulated and circulated.

Shakespeare yearned to be among it.

Frustrated by his brutal father and his fruitful marriage, he did what many men have done since, right up to today: he protested the importance of his work and abandoned home for London, with the line, present in both the novel and the film, 

my company needs me.

These were occluded times. Agnes will not take her children to London, for fear of pestilence. But it finds her and the young ones. She says of Shakespeare that he has more in his head than any man she knows. Agnes is a sorcerer of herbs from garden and forest for conjuring medicines, with much in her head and in her heart. 

Riches flow from the contents of Shakespeare’s head, conjured into dramas that delight the Court and the public so much that he can buy a big house and land in Stratford, but cannot move back there. 

There is tragedy enough in this, but death, the ultimate tragedy, stalks them. It kills the boy at home and forces a formidable play from his father. Shakespeare writes and produces Hamlet, wherein the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, he told Agnes earlier, is overturned, when the boy does looks back to his mother, who smiles and lets him go.

In Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, Chloe Zhao directs two physically strong and charismatic young Irish actors in exhilarating roles. They are present and convincing. Buckley has received both the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globes awards. Oscar nominations are likely. Supporting actors are strong, especially Emily Watson, re-united with Mescal after their stirring work together in God’s Creatures.

A play within a play; a play within a novel; a play and a novel within a film.

A child within a womb; a child within a grave.

We may not cheat death, but we may salve life and its pains. By art.

Hamlet, play: recommended

Hamnet, novel: recommended.

Hamnet, film: recommended.

See also READING HAMNET (2022)

https://breathingwithalimp.blogspot.com/2022/10/reading-hamnet-thats-n-not-l.html

www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter

END OF 2025 REPORTS ON HMOs FROM A NEIGHBOURLY ASSESSOR ARE IN

                            

A series of ‘end of year assessments’ on progress with HMOs in the neighbourhood of University of Ulster Magee campus (UU Magee) are now available. Summaries follow.

•⁠  ⁠Residents, as members of CRAM (Concerned Residents Around Magee) and individually, received a positive assessment for their diligence in responding to the glut of HMOs. Without their hard work, the drift to Holyland 2 in Derry would have accelerated even more in 2025. Further diligence is required in 2026 to avoid a relapse. ‘Keep up the good work’ is advised.

•⁠  ⁠Councillors and MLAS, notably those who were active on the Planning Committee and elsewhere, made a late surge in December that improved their assessment. This follows the successful delivery of the new Local Development Plan. Formal adoption of the 10% cap in the UU Magee neighbourhood must be an early target for 2026 in order to deliver on this late promise.

•⁠  ⁠Council officials and Planners are praised for effort, while remaining vulnerable to ruses such as CLEUD (Certificate of Lawful Existing Use or Development) and the regulations of PAC (Planning Appeals Commission). Two public meetings by planning officers were useful. Planners insistence on balance is welcomed, though balance remains some way off. All parties are not operating on a level playing field. Assisting councillors with their commitment to a 10% cap will strengthen future assessments.

•⁠  ⁠University of Ulster (UU) is marked ‘must do better’. Their current laissez-fair approach to accommodating students negates their duty of care to them and to their neighbours. Reliance on the Task Force’s Report re: the private sector left UU short, though recent moves at the Desmond’s Strand Road site gives its assessment a late boost. Securing money for a Sports’ facility and teaching facilities highlights the neglect of living accommodation. UU’s neglect of the parking congestion caused by staff and students remains a problem. ‘Must do better’ is the overall assessement.

•⁠  ⁠A number of developers, landlords and their agents failed, not helped by absenteeism and the blatant disregard of local needs by advertising the use of CLEUD (a form of ‘get out of jail free’ card). Planning Purpose Built Student Accommodations (PBSA) without considering car-parking further exacerbates congestion. They need a total re-orientation in the direction of balance, as noted by Planners above, to achieve a better assessment. A re-sit may be on the cards.

•⁠  ⁠Department for Infrastructure (DfI) responded to MLAs and residents’ concerns, but the congestion caused by University expansion led to a lower assessment. Traffic wardens are welcome, though their presence is intermittent, leading to a sense of ‘an accident waiting to happen’. Pressure on services such as fire and rescue, ambulance, buses and refuse collection leaves the end of year assessment for DfI as ‘less than satisfactory’.

A mixed bag in general, with hope for optimism resting with Councillors commitment to a 10% cap on HMOs in the UU Magee neighbourhood, coupled with a focus on balance by Planners and some recent evidence that Purpose Built Student Accommodation may be on the horizon.

© Dave Duggan 2025

The Neighbourly Assessor is Dave Duggan, a writer who lives around the corner from UU Magee.