The results of this coupling will be to produce another, incestuous, illegitimate son for our Liz, the future Earl of Southampton. The doomed Earl of Essex, Southampton's dearest friend, is another of Liz's illegitimate progeny ... while Rafe Spall reprises his semi-psychopathic joker persona as an uncouth, vicious and on-the-make William Shakespeare.
No expense has been spared in making the film but despite high production values, it ultimately disappoints: not because of the far-fetched thesis but because it's hard to separate out the times and the characters.
There's so much time-jumping between the generations that it's impossible to work out on screen which illegitimate son is begetting which. Not that begetting takes up a lot of screen time, but the confusing flashback sequences do.
We walked back in intense discussion as to who was Edward de Vere's father (we never figured it out). Then we went to the Co-Op.
