Letters from Elsinore
1) Your book is carrying on from the end of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Was this a daunting prospect?
Yes and no. To dare to slip into Shakespeare’s shoes - what an act of audacity and hubris! But Hamlet is such a huge sea of troubles, there’s room for all of us to swim in it.
2) Have you always been fascinated with Shakespeare?
Since I was 15. I had failed all my exams and was about to leave school and go to sea. Then Olivier’s film of Hamlet came on our 12-inch black and white TV set. And the world changed.
3) Is Hamlet your favourite Shakespeare play?
Tragedy, comedy, history, psychology, theatre, hope, despair and death - nine deaths! It’s got everything. Coleridge said: “It is WE who are Hamlet.” We’re all in there.
4) Did that play a big part in your decision to write the book?
I taught the play for 30 years, but I think I’ve been waiting to write it since I was 15 - ever since that first film.
5) What can we expect from you in the future?
More books! I have a few written but unpublished. And two more to follow - on the love-lives of John Donne and Thomas Hardy.
6) Who are some of your favourite authors?
Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, R.L.S, George Orwell. As poets - Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Larkin - dozens of others.
7) Do you plan each step of the writing process before you start or do you let the story “take control” and follow its own path?
I prefer to have a plan, and usually it works out, but in the process the pen is sometimes mightier than the plan, and I try not to get in the way.
8) What is the best part about being an author?
Living in another world. Somebody once said that you only live twice. As an author you climb inside all sorts of skins, and you sit at the desk and live lots of lives. It can feel almost godlike - apart from the long hours!
9) What important advice would you give to other authors?
Don’t wait for inspiration. Tchaikovsky once said that inspiration does not come to the lazy. Keep at it. Writing is a craft.
10) What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
That there is no one simple truth. Shakespeare doesn’t try to teach you any lessons, other than that life is a complex business. There is a suspension of judgement about people, especially in Hamlet. I hope readers will come away from it knowing more about Hamlet than they did before, but also knowing that they will never know enough.