Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Lydia Wilson, John Dagleish, Kathryn Wilder, Sam Ellis, Alex MacQueen, Jack Colgrave Hirst, Margaret Wheeler, Gerard Horan, Doug Colling, Lolita Chacrabarti, Philip Dunster, Freya Durkan, Flora Easton, Matt Jessup, Sabi Perez, Michael Rouse, Kate Tydman.

It is a beautiful story and one that will break the heart of anyone with half a romantic soul in their body and yet like all beautiful whispers that we seek to take advantage of by seemingly learning something of the poet’s soul, fiction, that forgiving beast of bounty, leads to a comedy of inaccuracies and yet we still pursue it as if it were a fair maiden covered in buttercup petals or a rueful youth displaying muscles and brawn on the beach.

There is no greater idol in English literature in which to take heed of the words of Albert Camus, “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth”, a sincere sense of applause forthcoming as the weaver of tales plants sedition, uprising, love and disgrace into the realm, in Shakespeare’s case, perhaps the idea of Elizabeth I’s most able spin doctor, albeit one with sensual wit and beguiling appreciation of the human condition. Fiction was more than a stock in trade, it was a life force that could not be contained, even when the fiction was shrouded in truth and the lie was content to walk hand in hand with truth.

All Is True, maybe not, not enough is known about the last years of Shakespeare aside from what has been recorded and yet why should that spoil a good tale and it is one that Ben Elton himself weaves with just as much wit, the nods of suggestion and the exaggeration of events in between what is understood to make All Is True a film that captures and breaks your heart with ease, that lives up to the ideal of beauty.

We cannot live with such reasoning that we must dissuade ourselves from allowing the imagination to wander and to concoct what is never discussed, the last few years of Shakespeare’s life were undoubtedly wrapped in some part over the turmoil, perhaps tortured thoughts of losing his son, Hamnet, and it is in this, a love letter through the ages to that relationship, the unrequited love to the Earl of Southampton, played with devilish joy by Ian McKellen and to the memory of his wife and daughters that Ben Elton, along with the exceptional Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Lydia Wilson and Kathryn Wilder excel.

All Is True and in the end it is up to history and investigation to show us otherwise, but sometimes beauty is so endearing that we follow blindly enough to sit in its radiance for a while, our heart’s broken but filled with the peculiarity of enjoyment having enriched our lives, even for the shortest time and to that lie we find staunch dedication and no regret for having listened and observed for a while.

Ian D. Hall