Tom Stoppard has always had an ear for the Bard, stretching back to his surreal and hilarious early plays Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Dogg's Hamlet, and Cahoots Macbeth. For those who have already seen the film Shakespeare in Love, this screenplay offers a chance to savor Stoppard's exuberant collaboration with the renowned screenwriter Marc Norman. The result gives us, among many other things, a dog, Hamlet, Kit Marlowe, Elizabeth I, and probably one of the best screenplays in modern cinema based on Shakespeare.

The pace of the script, from its opening long shot of London in 1593 to the final shot of Viola walking off into her brave new world, is breathtaking. The verbal fireworks and Shakespearean borrowings are not only worthy of the Bard himself, but perfectly re-create the conditions of the Elizabethan theater. The jokes and allusions fly thick and fast, often straining the agility of even the most nimble Shakespeare scholar, but at the heart of the screenplay is both a compelling love story and an ingenious perspective on the inspiration behind both Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. A wonderful piece of writing--long may Shakespeare in Love keep the Bard in fashion! --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The companion screenplay to the acclaimed Miramax/Universal/Bedford Falls Company Film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Ben Affleck, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, and Dame Judy Dench.

It is the summer of 1593, and the rising young star of London's theater scene, Will Shakespeare, faces a scourge like no other: a paralyzing bout of writer's block. The great Elizabethan age of entertainment unfolds around him, but Will is without inspiration, he just can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for his latest play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. What he needs is a muse.