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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Allie Esiri, Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West: Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year

Feeling all Zoomed out? As part of the Hay Festival, which this year has gone digital and is open for free to anyone around the world, Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West have joined forces with writer Allie Esiri to film a lockdown drama based on Esiri’s new anthology, out in September from Penguin. Set in a London garden, the scenes from Hamlet, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, and other Shakespeare classics were filmed in a single day, made possible by a skeleton crew of four: The Crown director Benjamin Caron, cinematographer Adriano Goldman, sound recordist Chris Ashworth, and editor Yan Miles. It’s the first drama to film on location during lockdown—Bonham Carter incorporates lockdown social distancing into a scene from Much Ado About Nothing when she, as Beatrice, uses a tape measure to push West, as Benedick, away—and airs at 12:30 P.M. E.T. —J.V.