Maggie O’Farrell

Not only has someone made a film of my book, but I had it with an amazing director, with Chloe Zhao, and with an absolute dream cast.

You know, you couldn't really ask for more than Jessie Buckley and Paul Meskell.

And the kids, the three kids who play Susanna, Hamnet and Judith are just jaw-droppingly brilliant.

So I have to keep pinching myself.

I'm going to be covered in bruises, I think, by the end of the week.

Well, I'm really happy that you say that, Fern.

That makes me really happy.

I never, ever wanted to write the kind of novel that you need an A-level in English or even a degree in English literature to understand.

I didn't want it to be like that.

And whenever people say to me that Shakespeare is difficult or he's elitist or, you know...

I always want to say, you know, Shakespeare left school when he was 15.

His dad was a glover.

You know, he didn't go to university.

He's not like Ben Johnson or Christopher Marlowe's contemporaries.

He wrote about people for the people.

You know, the capacity of the Globe Theatre was 3,000 people.

Not all of those people were educated aristocrats up in the high seats.

Most of them were what was called groundlings.

They were just people off the streets of London who went in and they recognised themselves and they recognised their language and their jokes and all this ribaldry and, you know, love, arguments, everything.

conflict, it was all there.