By the time you read this, Oscar night will have come and gone. Shakespeare In Love has received 13 nominations, including Best Film, Best Actress and Best Screenplay.
It is directed by John Madden, co-scripted by Tom Stoppard (one of the most literate and amusing of living playwrights), and stars Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the fastest-rising actresses in cinema.
The film has a simple, romantic storyline. Shakespeare has a writing-block and is in search of a muse to inspire him. This is very bad news for theatre-owner Philip Henslowe, who is waiting for Shakespeare's new, and as yet unwritten, play. The muse comes to the rescue in the form of Viola, a high-born independent-minded girl who desperately wants to act. Because the theatre is an all-male profession in Elizabethan London, she auditions disguised as a man; there are many complicated mishaps before Shakespeare falls in love with her and Romeo and Juliet is written - mirroring the star-crossed lovers themselves, for Viola is promised in loveless marriage to an impoverished nobleman.
