Anonymous

To see or not to see, that is the question, just as it is always the question with us — I believe our relationship may be caught in what is generally referred to as a ‘rut’ — but I shall answer all the same and my answer is this: Anonymous is a ‘not see’ and I would urge you to not see it at your earliest possible convenience. Shame, as it had looked such a prospect. It’s a big, fat costume drama set during the Elizabethan era which asks what some scholars have been asking for the past century or so: did Shakespeare actually write the works credited to him?

It has a tremendous cast, and stars, among others, Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Mark Rylance and David Thewlis. With hindsight, I think I expected one of those playful, speculative histories like Shakespeare in Love or Amadeus or The Madness of King George but, instead, what you get is a bloated, soapy melodrama so incompetently executed that if it doesn’t confuse you it’s only because you’ve nodded off.