Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Girlguiding and PVC jumpsuits (with Maggie O'Farrell)

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Fi’s blood pressure has well and truly spiked today, so join us as we collectively try to bring it back down… Coming off the lid today, there’s chat about re-reading books, army ladies, and cancel culture.Plus, bestselling author Maggie O’Farrell discusses the film adaptation of her novel 'Hamnet', starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.You can listen to our 'I'm in the cupboard on Christmas' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1awQioX5y4fxhTAK8ZPhwQIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On that topic, I'd just like to get this off my chest, Jane. So everything is very slippy in London today, isn't it? And there's an awful lot of grit being applied because the ice, it's probably called something, isn't it, is another beast from east? I don't think this has a name. I think it's just called Winter. We're all slightly surprised. There's a very good point. Winter has arrived. Anyway, there was a lovely quite young woman

who obviously had some kind of an injury who was trying to get up the stairs at Dalston Kingston Station today which are very slippy. They always ice the outside but they don't ice the inside and it's one of those slightly kind of outdoor stations so you think it's the same temperature in here as it is out there. Anyway, TFL, do what you want. You have done for the last 15 years anyway.

So I offered to give her helping hand I think her knee had gone or something. Was it just skiing injury? It may well have been something like that. I don't know what it was. Anyway, she accepted my offer of help and we started going upstairs. It is quite a long journey

and I know that the gates of St Peter's will simply swing open for me, Jane. It'd be like approaching an automatic door. It's just the kindnesses that have been done. You won't have anything checked or anything. You'll just be way straight in. It's not why I'm telling the story. We got halfway up the steps.

and there was a guy coming down the steps and he was quite an elderly gentleman, I'll give him that, and he looked at us, he was bouncing away, though. He was, you know, still, I would say fit as a fiddle. And he just looked at us and went, I'd go down sideways. Both of us, both of us. I know what I'd do to you sideways, pal.

Just like, just unbelievable. And it was just said in such a... He genuinely looked at us and thought those are two old women, probably, you know struggling their way up the steps I'd just give them a tip I won't give them a hand no just some advice would you like some help

no just some patronising advice sunny Jim oh my word and I did I just felt my blood pressure it was very calm was the bloke was this man wearing a hat he did have he had a little keppie on

oh did he okay right you know one of those kind of it's like a beanie but it's got a little front piece to it oh yeah like a lid Oh, like a, yes, I know what you mean. No, no, like a peak. Yes.

Yeah, like a lid. Well, yeah, let's call them lids. Let's call them man lids. He did have a man lid. So, anyway, maybe we should all follow his advice next time. Let's all go sideways down the stairs. See if that helps. It is cold.

I couldn't get warm in my own home last night. There's nothing worse than that. Is there? I took to my bed, I was saying to Eve. I just put my jamas on and just thought you've done enough today. Yeah. And I took to my chamber. was really quite early on.

Well, I think that's very sensible. And everybody will try and give you advice about grief at the moment actually. And I think sometimes that's very unhelpful. It's your own personal journey. It is, yeah. But I think it's very tiring, Jane. And because it is tiring. It means the phase that you're in at the moment as well,

dealing with all of the emotions and the huge sense of loss, is also the time that you have to deal with all of the admin and planning a funeral and getting in touch with lots of people. telling your story over and over again to people and I think it's incredibly tiring so I think you should retire to your chambers as the sun sets if you can get home in time

I can't be fair to me I need to be home before the show finishes oh I don't mind nothing happens in the last 15 minutes oh no it's vital it is tiring you're absolutely right and I am not an organiser and I'm now in a position where I have to do

an element of organisation quite a lot and it's just not it is not my strong suit so I've got lists I've written on my hand I've got lists on my phone I'm trying to keep up with everything and I'm not also I'm acutely aware that so mum's funeral is not for a couple of weeks and that's because

and she would hate this I'm sorry to say it mother she did die at a very common time of the year how vulgar it's really quite vulgar and it's been very hard to get a slot let's just be honest about all this and so it's not for another three years

weeks so it's quite that's quite a big build-up on the other hand it does give us time um but something that it's not is it at one of liverpool's major cathedrals it should be it should be at the anglican vast cathedral it's so big that establishment is crazy is that the very modern one that crops up in paddy's wigwam that's the catholic one okay yeah yeah absolutely i mean i love both the cathedrals i should say actually i just think there's some fantastic well mom wasn't religious but we are shoehorning in a little bit of religion into the service just just in case she founded in the final moments exactly you could never be too careful so we are doing a bit of that but what I was going to say was you look and she's got

we were talking earlier actually the team about photographs because I've got some photographs for the kind of visual tribute during the ceremony and also for the order of service and you just realise when you go through these amazing boxes of photos what will our children have to look at when it I mean you know when it comes to perhaps our demise or indeed, you know, further down the line, you don't even want to think about it, when they go, because they won't have these amazing printed, this printed record of their life and times.

A mum went all over the world, and what I'm acutely aware of is I'm going to do this sort of eulogy thing to the best of my ability. But I didn't know her for the first third of her life because I wasn't here. And even then, I only knew her as my mum. And that is completely different from the perspective. of my dad, her best friend. You know, all these other people, hugely important. Well, Jane, if you think about,

I think it's a really good point, if you think about all of the things that we all got up to in our youth, I mean, girl guiding for you. And for my mom. BBC cat suits for me. It takes all sorts. No, but you're absolutely right.

We've had a life, and quite often it's a life that we are not entirely honest with our children about for very obvious reasons. and quite often it's a life that has, you know, we've tried some things out. We've tried being different people in our youth before we have come to settle where we are in old age.

You've never dressed up as a war veteran and gone to a... Do you know, I just very much hope that everybody had forgotten that incident. It's a story that has been very big in the UK, hasn't it? Well, strangely big. Well, strangely big, but I understand the outrage. It's about a man who he pretended. to be a war veteran and he turned up at the very significant to a lot of people service of remembrance in November I can't remember exactly where but bedecked with all kinds

of Wales somewhere was it all kind of Colwyn Bay I think it was all kinds of medals he just hadn't won and it turned out he'd been doing it for years turning up at events of that nature and pretending to be something he wasn't he appeared in court you got fined 500 quid but it's just which I did think was very much by the way I just think it's a very bizarre thing to do, isn't it? It's very bizarre. I mean, it does speak, why do people lie about, it's like people who used to lie about their age? It's just pointless.

Why do it? You're going to get found out. Anyway, I did get a first class degree, and I'm going to keep on saying that. Yes. Even if I didn't, what's the matter? Dr. Garvey. First storm, oh God, the first storm of the year has been named. It's got it as Goretti. Gretti.

That's not right. That sounds like a lovely ice cream parlor. Somewhere in Primrose Hill. Completely wrong. I'll have traditional vanilla, please. Yeah, Mr. Gorette. It doesn't work at all, I don't know what, I've called it that, no. The funniest thing was said about that bloke, though, which was by one of the other people who had attended that ceremony,

who said that he would have got away with it if he had just had slightly fewer medals. But he put so many medals on his chest. And if you see the pictures, they are falling off his shoulder. He's got so many medals. So if he's just gone for the 10 instead of the 12, then nobody would have reported him. So they always have to be bigger.

Yeah, that's like, it just always have to be bigger. And they're not always men, but this strikes me as being quite a masculine way of deceiving other people. I could be wrong. Oh, yeah, no, I think there are some quite well-documented women who have pulled the world over people's eyes. Yeah, but probably wouldn't pretend to be military veterans.

Or maybe they have. I don't know. Anyway, we're odd. Well, that's just because if you turned up with 12 medals on at a ceremony as a woman, people would go what or they think you're a member of the royal family yeah they acquire a lot of metals as far as I know

the UK army has never been led by a woman is how many major generals are the who are female there are some quite senior women speaking off the top of my funny hat

speaking off your lid speaking off the top of my lid I think there are some quite anyway let's move on thank you we had some lovely messages about my mum actually and honestly I'm hugely appreciated and also I'm glad that people appreciate that we were just being honest

yesterday talking about this because there's no point pretending that she hasn't died because it would be really ridiculous and I'm so glad for the much more open society we live in now where you can come into work and you can talk about this and I think things were different even 20, 30 years ago they really were weren't they? Oh completely yeah I mean I hate to say it but my boss at the time

when your dad died yeah when I returned to work and I only went back to work for two weeks because then my baby was due. He had advised the team not to mention it. You see, that's crap. So I walked into work and just the strangest thing, you know, when you are gaslit on something that huge,

you just think, well, I can't bring it up. So it was just so bizarre. But I think that was the kind of received wisdom of the times. That's not mentioning it. It's bound to not be on her mind at all until someone brings it up. Oh, shit, my dad's time. Oh, my God.

you're kidding me it's laughable isn't it that they would assume that by mentioning it they were bringing something up that wasn't actually at the forefront of your conscious mind very odd it's so so strange and I'm at the peculiar and you're absolutely right about the tiring nature of grief

I am sleeping for 10 hours and ice at the moment it's so odd it's your brain's way of recovering from the shock of it as well that's probably right and also I then get to a point where I'm not thinking about her and I feel I think oh god how can you not be thinking about her that's awful and that makes me feel guilty and I don't know it's it's obviously a phase and maybe it'll shift a bit but anyway lovely messages thank you very much ariel just says so sorry to

hear of your mum's passing may her memory forever be a blessing to you and it will be we are laughing about her we're talking about her and we're missing her and it's really really important so thank you all very much indeed for just acknowledging that it's happened and we're not going to stop talking about it I mean Kim says I was sorry to hear about your mum Jane, but I have to admit I did laugh out loud when you said she would always make a comment about your hair. I mean, honestly, I just let the woman down so much with my hair. My mum was also obsessed with my hair.

Bless all of us down, Jane. I know. To the point that in her later years, she would take to carrying all photos of me to show anyone and everyone in front of me telling them, this is when Kim had nice hair. Oh, Kim. Oh, Kim.

My husband and sons thought it was hilarious. Kim, thank you. I mean, there is just something about... You see, but I don't think it's the same with me, so I... Oh no, actually, I do... Because my younger daughter has straightens her curly hair and I hate it, and as soon as it was drawn back to its natural state...

You make a comment. I make a comment. Yeah, my God, I'm in this. I'm a part of this. Yeah, you've got to stop. You've busted me, Kim. Let the hair be free. Yes, let them do what they wish with their own hair.

Now, I want to bring in Hazel, because it was so lovely to get another email from Hazel. You'll understand why when I read it in its entire... very much enjoying the book chat. Now this is on the live radio program, which is 2 till 4, Monday to Thursday on Times Radio. The app is free. Just download it and off we pop together. Very much enjoying the book chat and I agree with the love for the Casillette's brilliant novels. Now these are by Elizabeth Jane Howard and there are five novels and it is a family saga. Yes, I mean, we were recommending, recommended it yesterday by Robbie Millen, weren't we? And this is not the first time that these books have been, recommended to me. I gather as well they're available in audio book form. Go on for months. Off you go. And you'll be absorbed. Yeah.

And I did interview Elizabeth Jane Howard very shortly before she died, I think. So you've read all of her books before you. This is it, Fiona. Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to read them. Were you deep in Ken? This is probably about 10,

50, might even have been 15 years ago. She did seem a lovely, lovely woman, but in her lifetime she had been somewhat overshadowed by her association with let's just not mention him no let's not actually you're right yeah because I completely agree with you

in everything that I've read about her third line in and I mean they weren't married when she died were they? No no no so let's not mention him at all I've forgotten him yeah me too I'm going to carry on with Hazel's email

if that's okay I'd like to recommend a safe read Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Sigal. It's a wonderful coming of age novel with a bit of mystery, humor, romance and redemption. Only book of the last year that every person in my book group loved, beautifully written and first of a trilogy. You may remember you came to my shop in Dulwich for an event and I recommended the wonderful Susie Steiner.

Now, Hazel, it was one of the best book recommendations that I've ever received in my lifetime. of reading. Just as soon as I opened Susie Steiner's books, I loved her. And it started something, didn't it, for you as well and for us on the podcast. It was one of the reasons we wanted to do book clubs, so books like that don't just get lost. So, Hazel, we owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. And of course, we should read Glorious Tuga by Francesca Sagal. Glorious. I'm saying Tuga, but it might be Tuga. T-U-G-A. T-U-G-A. I've never heard of it, I must admit. That does sound.

very interesting. I think a recommendation from Hazel is a very good recommendation and shout out to your shop which is Village Books in Dulwich and we did one of our live events feel the free song, feel the free song down in Dulwich years ago actually I think it was in a lockdown era wasn't it

somewhere between possibly just before pandemics and that's where my memory gets incredibly fuzzy what was before lockdown and what was during it and do you know what has been really interesting is that I was in a WhatsApp group with my mum and my sister. And this is another aspect of 21st century grief, I suppose. What do you do with all that? Archive it.

Well, we have. And it's, but I can't bear to read it yet. No. And you won't for years. No, no, I think that's probably... But imagine the humour of being able to then in 10 years' time, you know, on a rainy afternoon... Revisit.

Revisit it. because it'll make you laugh out loud. Yeah. I think also those messages carry us through the pandemic. So it will be quite interesting. Perhaps I'm bigging up my role here, but quite interesting social history to find out what we were all talking about in.

I mean, it was pretty dark, the dark winter of 2020 and 2021. Those were tough times, weren't they? Definitely. Particularly for those of us who had older relatives not living near us. I mean, I remember us talking about this. Yeah, because we couldn't go,

We couldn't go visit at all. I didn't see my mum for years, actually. I think that's, yeah, I think that would be right. It was really hard. Yeah, really, really hard. Anyway, what was I going to say? Oh, yes, Sarah says, I'm behind at the minute, but catching up. In a throwaway comment, Jane mentioned she never re-reads books,

and this has really shocked me. I still reread Jacqueline Wilson books from when I was a teenager, when the adult world just gets a little too tough. And I was really saddened to hear about Sophie Kinsella's passing. her books feel so deeply nostalgic to me it made me wonder are most people not rereading is this a unique habit I have without realising I'd love to hear what other listeners think

because re-reading feels like such a comfort to me rather than something I've ever questioned she does say that she's moved to Egypt this year not entirely through her own willingness but because of her husband's job and so listening to the podcast has been really helpful to Sarah thank you very much for that message Do you re-read books?

No, I really properly can't. But I did re-read something out of a slight kind of bookshelf desperation. I can't remember where I was, but we would have been in an Airbnb or something and I'd run out of book. And I re-read an Ian Rankin Rebus novel. And I realised that I had no recollection of the plot at all. And I think I've been a verse to rereading because I've given my memory more credit than it's a chance.

It's actually, it's a bit fuzzy these days at the best of times. So what a joy. Wonderful. Just start with my bookshel. Start at the top left and work my way through. That reminds me. Tomorrow's guest, or today's guest is Maggi O'Farrel, we should say, who's a truly brilliant writer, almost definitely worth rereading.

But Jake Humphrey is on tomorrow. Now he is like a kind of, he's like our New Year Galvanizer. And his new book is called Micro Habits. and it's just about what are you laughing at me it's about high performance which is what his podcast is all about and I've been reading I was reading it in bed just before I turned off the light last night

I don't know what the matter is with you what a performance well I don't think anybody would have been even I don't think the term high performance could have been applied to me last night I was wearing so many layers hot water bottle hat I think when Jake wrote it

that's exactly who he wrote it for but anyway one of his tips And I think this is golden, right? How to improve your performance. You just get up a bit earlier. He's been setting his alarm 15 minutes earlier. And he's, apparently he says that it's... Well, every day.

He's getting up at midnight. And it just means that he's completely changed. He's just changed. When the kids and his partner come downstairs, he says he's ready with cuddles and coffee. There you go, right? Well, I mean, whatever works for you, whatever floats your boats,

5am club thing, isn't there, on the socials on the Instagram. I'm not aware of that one. Yeah, which is the notion that if you get up at 5am, you can do all of your stuff and you're somehow way more ready for the world. It's glorious in May and June, but I wouldn't fancy it right now. Oh, it's absolutely miserable, and there's a preponderance on it. I did look at it of, I'm going to say it, Jane, hate me for it if you want to, of women chasing a certain level of urgency,

ambition, perfection, wellness, that to me is just exhausting, self-destructive. Let's not do it. Let's have a lion. Well, you know, let's not be the ones you get up at 5am to get everything done before the kids get up and before hubby with a lid on. Come up downstairs.

Let's not be that woman. Just slob around in bed, sleep through your alarm. feed. Just do you think. So that is a perfect idea. Jake Humphrey's book about high, is it called high performance? Micro habits. Micro habits.

It's those little things fee that you could do. Now actually you have brought in, what is it, a high density lunch. Oh, I bought it from M&S. But why don't we challenge the publishing world? Why don't we get a new works out there called macro habits and just advise people to do the exact opposite. of all of these wellness things. You're doing the interview. Is he coming in? He's coming in. Is he going to arrive on time?

He's live. He's live. I'm just going to be learning. Okay, you're going to sit at the feet of wisdom. We have interviewed him quite a few times, actually, haven't we? He's like our kind of man totem. Well, that he is. But he's a good way to start the year. Thank God for Timotee. That's actually not what the title of the email is. It's thank God dash timet. We're so glad about this, by the way.

It comes in from Eleanor. Thank you so much for calling out the episode. Emperor's new clothes. That is Marty Supreme. What a load of Tosh. We wanted to leave, but we were boxed in in the middle of the row and we felt it was too disruptive. He is so thoroughly unlikable, wasn't one redeeming feature in it. The sex scenes were so jarring because it was so unlikely that an ugly rump with zero personality would bed Gwyneth Biltrow. I firmly believe the only reason he made the film was so that

he could drag Gwyneth. I'm sorry, we will not be available in Dubai. I hate, hate, hate it. And I have a low bar of films that please me. I'm not sure I'll be able to watch Hamnet in public as I'll be crying the whole way through it, but I am looking forward to watching Saipan, which covers Roy Keene and Mick McCarthy's blow-up ahead of the World Cup in 2002. I agree on that subject, by the way. It opens on January the 23rd. Yeah, looking forward to that. I wasn't across this at all. Well, I mean, young Eve was suggesting that we might feature it on the podcast, and I think we might, because I don't think there's been a very proud history of football films. They've often

been miserable failures. Do you remember the one where Sylvester Stallone and Pele were doing some bizarre... Oh, good God, no, I don't. Prisoner of War camp film. Anyway, what was it called? It was rubbish, anyway. Football doesn't really work on the big screen. No, I don't think sport works on a big screen. Do you not? I think that's one of the problems of Marty Supreme. What about chariots of fire? It's running, isn't it? I mean, I know it's a sport. I suppose that's easy to recreate and be believable. You just speed people up. But there have been quite a few tennis ones, haven't there?

And it's just so boring to watch fictional tennis. Why would you waste your life on that? Let's put that out there. What is the greatest film about sport? Not Rocky. Although I suppose you can say it might. Maybe that is the greatest film about sport. Boxing lends itself quite well to the big screen.

But you're right. I don't think tennis does. Do you know who's playing Royke? Eanna Hardwick. Okay. Well, he looks, he doesn't, he looks like he could do a little bit of menace. Well, I think if I were Roy Keene, I'd be pretty pleased if he's playing me, to be honest. Yeah, I'm not Roy Keene. Jeremy has emailed a shattering image of a discarded Christmas tree,

which he observed in West London's Fulham on the, really, the 21st of December. Now, that does suggest, as he says, what on earth is the story here? and how do we find out? And also, the Christmas tree, even by the 21st of December, has drooped. Yes, it's a sorry sight. It is a sorry sight, but obviously I totally get why you've had a belly full of the festive season, even by the 28th or the 27th even, but the 21st, you've not even dried. I think maybe they've got, maybe those kind of people who go to Dubai for Christmas.

So you have a run-up Christmas celebration. I think Lord Eddie Vasey was in far-flung sunny places and was due to come back on Christmas Eve. Gosh, that's grand. Yeah, and I gave that a bit of thought, actually, whether or not that would be a way to do Christmas. So you completely avoid that Christmas run-up, which can be very exhausting and also full of germs,

especially for ladies. Yes. And then you just arrive back and presumably someone else is doing Christmas. So you come back with your suntans, your large tobarone bars, all of the Clarence packs. and you say hello.

You probably can just pick up a turkey caran at the airport. A bag of spuds and some gravy. That's for all you really need. Yeah, but it'd all be on special offer by then, wouldn't it? Probably would be half-price. This is a genius idea. Yeah, let's all do it. This one comes from Jill, from a would-be time traveller.

This made me laugh. I listened to both of you on radio. I don't mention it. It's a dying station, Jill. And afterwards on the fortunately podcast. But for some reason, I inadvertently. missed your current totally fabulous incarnation. Well, we're here, aren't we? We're here at times. How many decades have we been here now? We're at year four, Jill. Eve was an reception when we first started.

Since I found it, I've started at the beginning and I'm now avidly binging my way through it. I spent Christmas 2025 happily home alone with my trusty German shepherd Lola working through the Liz Trussentelooge. Oh my God. And I've now reached March 2020. which brings me to why today I so wish I had a time machine to whizz back a couple of years and give you some brilliant news not the Labour government

I had such high hopes but sadly so far it's turned out to be a bit of a disappointment no the good news I'd love to impart is that you won't have to tolerate the tosser in the hairnet for much longer Greg Wallace has come I love you chill do it justice

Greg Wallace has come a cropper and now everyone can feel free to despise him as much as I have since you first appear on my television. I am inclined to make snap judgments of people. Well, you've come to the right podcast, Jill, which may be a fault on my part, but yet again, I've been proved right.

Obviously, if you do read this out, it'll be August 2026 before I hear it. Well, we hope you're having a very lovely summer. I hope it's a cracker. I hope there isn't a drought. Are you enjoying a hosepipe ban? I mean, let us know. Actually, I'm getting really confused as I think about this.

So there's no point us giving her advice, because by the time she comes, no. No, but we could try and predict something, couldn't we, and see whether by the time she listened to it, it's come true. I've already said it by then. England will be proud winners of the Men's World Cup. Okay, you're sticking with that. Good for you.

We have a game of predictions in our family every year, and we have lots and lots of different categories, including the person who will be cancelled and found out. And obviously, one of us in the family has had a winner this year because David Williams was on the list. Point is, Jill, that we can't actually just randomly name people who we think can counsel.

I mean, we could. It wouldn't just be Dubai in which you heard our silence. No, I think there'd be a long-term silence where we'd to do that. It's a hell of an idea, though. Now, Hamnet tells the story of the all-too-short life

of Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare's son. And it's important that Anne comes first in that pairing because Maggie O'Farrell's book, Hamlet, puts her very much at the centre of a family that has for very obvious reasons been dominated by the talents of the father and husband. History also doesn't tell us that much about William Shakespeare's role as a dad and husband. And Maggie O'Farrell wanted to explore those themes in her novel too.

Hamlet has now been made into a film starring Jesse Buckley and Paul Muscal. It's directed by Chloe Jow, who won the Oscar for her direction of Nomad Land. And Maggie O'Farrell's books have won her the Betty Trask Award, the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. More importantly, they delight her readers. Well, Maggie came in to talk to us a couple of days ago and I asked her to take us right back to what sparked the original idea for a book about,

here comes the second mention, one of Billy the Bard's kids. Well, it goes right back, actually, for when I was 16. Not that I'm saying I had a revelation when I was 16 and I thought one day I will write a novel about Shakespeare, But I was studying Hamlet at school and I had a particularly brilliant English teacher who was called Mr Henderson and I really loved to play.

It really got under my skin and I think it does appeal to a certain type of teenager one who maybe wears quite a lot of black clothing. A tailcoat was involved, that's all I'm going to say. Lots of black eyeliner. I did hang around in churchyards taking black and white photographs of me and my friends. So I think Hamlet does

feel familiar to if you're that kind of teenager. But my teacher mentioned in passing one day that Shakespeare had a son who'd been called Hamlet, who died to age 11, and Shakespeare went on four years or so later to write the play Hamlet. And even though I was a really, obviously a really long way from being a writer and a mother,

it immediately seemed really fascinating to me and really intriguing as to why someone would give the name of their children. dead son to a play and a prince and a ghost and I've just always ever since then been really intrigued about the link between this lost son and the play and hamlet and hamlet are interchangeable as a name from Elizabethan times in parish records they're completely interchangeable hamnet and judith shakespeare's twin children were named after their friends who were called saddlers hamlet and judith saddler who were the bakers in stratford upon even and hamnet sadler spells his name

loads of different ways. He has a double T. He uses the end for an B and L. Spelling was a lot less stable in the 16th century. So is it a story then that you kept on finding you were kind of feeding in your head all the way through since you were 16? I mean, that could only be a couple of years ago, surely, Maggie. Well, a couple, it's true. I am still a teenager. Yes, that's a good way of putting, actually. It was a story you keep feeding. It reminds me a bit of a sourdough starter. like that in the fridge.

Yeah, I kept it in the fridge and I kept thinking about it and I kept buying more books about Shakespeare and reading them but every night and again I would have a go at it and then I just think, oh no, I can't, I can't,

who writes a novel about Shakespeare? That's a mad idea. And also the other thing that kept delayed me was it kind of weird and not a very superstitious person but I was oddly superstitious about writing this book because I have a son and two daughters

as the Shakespeare's did and I couldn't begin to write it until my own son was past the age of 11 not that there was a massive risk of him contracting the black death but you never know you can't be too careful with these things and so I kept thinking I can't do it because I knew that I'd have to put myself inside

the skin of a woman who is forced to sit by her son's bedside and watch him die despite her best efforts so I don't think that's superstitious at all I think no I think that's entirely logical actually and I mean I wanted to ask you about how it feels to write the death

of a child it's it's every parent's worst nightmare even if you're not a parent it's your nightmare is a terrible terrible place to go to in your head that you know understandably most of us pulled back from all the time

in a way I mean yes it was I think it's probably the most difficult thing I've ever written and it took me I actually kept putting it off. I wrote the first kind of half of the book and I hope it's not a spoiler to say that Hamlet dies. No, we're good with that. He dies about halfway through the novel.

So I'd written the first half and I knew that it was coming up in my plan for the novel. And I kept just thinking, I'll just go back and rewrite the beginning. I should probably just work a little bit on chapter four and finesse. And I knew that I was kind of refusing it,

like a horse refuges a fence. And then I just thought, no, I can't have to do it. and it took me about a fortnight, I think, to write the scene of Hamlet's death and then the following scene where his mother lays his body out for burial and I could only do it in about 10 or 15 minute bursts and I didn't do it in house

where my children live, I had to do it in a shed in the garden and it's not a nice shed like Philip Holman's writing shed it was actually at the time, it's actually blown down now in a gale it was a kind of really horrible mankey potting shed and I would sit in there on a really old garden chair from the 70s and write a little bit and then I'd have to go out and have a little walk around the garden

and then I'd go back in do a bit more but in a way I really wanted it to have an impact on the reader because I felt when I was reading when I was researching the book and I was reading these huge

kind of 500 page works of amazing scholarship about Shakespeare's biography but Hamlet is lucky really in those books if he gets one or two mentions and often his death is wrapped up in statistics about how often, how frequent it was

that children died at Elizabethan times, you know, the statistics about child mortality and there's one really respected biographer who actually wrote the line, it is impossible to know whether or not Shakespeare grieved when Hamlet died. Wow. And I made me so cross that book

that I threw it across the room because I thought, how dare you assume because child mortality was high that it's anything less than catastrophic? You know, how dare you minimize this child's, death and of course he was 11 you know of course he was grieved and he was loved and you only really have to read the play to understand how much he was grieved and loved so in a way i wanted to draw readers attention to say this child was important and he was grieved and we owe him so

much you know with that and we wouldn't have hamlet and we wouldn't have 12th night is it also a book and now a film and it has been a play as well it's like we're doing chariot here is it is it also a place where you wanted to explore how wives and mothers are often regarded as the shadow of the genius? Well, I think in a way, Shakespeare's wife, it would have been better of her to be regarded as a shadow. Actually, she's been regarded as a lot worse than that.

You know, we've only ever really... And this was something else I discovered from reading around Shakespeare's biography, that we've only ever really been given one narrative about her, and that is that she's this ignorant, peasant woman who lured this boy genius into married by getting pregnant, apparently on her own. And that he hated her. I mean, people have written he hated her.

He ran away to London to get away from her. He regretted his marriage. And, you know, I don't know where they've got that from. They must have just plucked it from the ether because there's literally no evidence that I could find of any of that at all. And actually there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. So there's two things that I always feel which are documented.

I mean, there's not actually much documentary evidence about the woman who people call Anne Hathaway at all. I mean, there's no record of her birth because she was born before records began in her village. We know that she got married, we know that she had three children, we know that Hamlet died,

we know that she lived quite a long time, she outlived him by 16 years, and we know that she ran a molting business at one point from the back of their house. And that's it. There's nothing else. despite the massive best efforts of all these scholars. But it doesn't matter from even that very, very scant detail.

And there's, of course, the second best bed behest in his will, which I think people, that's what people have clung onto and said. It means he hated her. Can you just explain that a bit more? So in Shakespeare's will, which is a document, he was very, very ill when he was dying. I mean, it's possibly from typhoid, which is a particularly nasty death. He leaves her, his second best bed.

I leave him to my wife, my second best bed. bed. And people have snatched upon this as proof to the theory that he hated her. Quite apart from the fact that when he retired, he chose to go back to live with her in Stratford-upon-Avon, quite apart from the fact that every single penny he earned in London he sent back to her to Stratford-upon-Avon.

And also, it just might be a bed that's got really, really great memories. Yes, exactly. You see, the best bed in Elizabeth the household was the one, it stayed in the parlour, and that's where you put your guest. The second best bed was the marriage bed. Yeah. I mean, it's not a movie that's short on lust and

love at all. I mean, it's gorgeous in that respect, isn't it? I think you've definitely done Anne, who in the film actually isn't Anne, is she? No, well, in the book and the film, she's Agnes or Agnes, because one of the big moments for me in writing her character was I read her father's well, so her father Richard Hathaway died a year before she married William and he left her quite a big dowry and in it he refers to her as my daughter, Agnes or Annius. And that was amazing to me because I thought, you know, quite apart from everything else that we've been told to think about her, we've been calling her by the wrong name

because surely if anyone knows her real name, it would be her dad. Yep. So she's lucky to have you on board to redeem her memory. And Hamna is too. And, I wonder about that move from it being a book and these characters that, in a sense,

you have control over, don't you, to appearing on the big screen. The first time that you watched the film, in the company of other people, did you feel that something had been a bit kind of rested from you? No, not at all, actually. And I think if you go into the process, if you are the novelist and you go into the process of a screen adaptation,

you can't and shouldn't expect it to be the same as the book. There would be no point in making a film if it's going to be an exact replica. So I'm really happy that it, with the sense that it sits alongside the book rather than it's exact, I mean, you couldn't. you know, it's a different language. The cinema language is different from the language on a page. And I feel that the book is like a, it's not an identical twin to the book, but it's a fraternal twin, like Hamlet and Judith themselves.

Good word, putting it. The emotional response from the audience is phenomenal, and I've been lucky enough to see the film in a preview, and Olivia Coleman came on the stage at the beginning and told everybody that we were going to need weepy things. And a couple of people around me in the audience didn't take her note seriously. So about 25 minutes in, there was a lot of rummaging around for some dirty Kleenecks at the bottom of bags and stuff.

But, I mean, it's a remarkable film in that respect, isn't it? The death of a child to be done so viscerally but sensitively, I think, is quite something. Well, I think a huge amount of that is down to the actors, I think, to Jessie and the extraordinary Jacoby Jubee, who plays Hamnet, who is actually 11. He was 11 at the time it was filmed. Yeah, he's like a unicorn, Jacoby. I don't know where he comes from or where he's going,

but he's extraordinary. He's a very old-haired on young shoulders. And what was really exceptional was watching him do take, after-take, after-take, and he pulled that out of himself somehow every single time. He's extraordinary as Hamlet. Yeah. Did you cry? Do you know, it's ridiculous. I mean, I wrote a book

and I co-wrote the screenplay and I was on set and I've seen the daily rushes and I've seen various versions of the film and when I did end up seeing it in the cinema which is at a premiere and I had my son with me who's now 22 and I thought, I'm not going to cry this time. Come on, you know, I know this really well.

But I did. And also I said to my son at the beginning I said just before the lights went down and I said, do you need a tissue? And he said, What did you? I dare you. And then about halfway through, I just silently handed him a tissue. There you go.

Yeah. So obey your mother and obey Olivia Coleman. Exactly. Listen to your mum. That's my message. At all times. Nature plays a huge part in an awful lot of your writing. I think it's one of your enormous strengths. And nature in the film is very important too. And it's quite, I mean, it's big, isn't it?

the director has managed to take us right into the Elizabethan countryside. Well, Chloe Zhao is very good at nature and environment. That was one of the reasons I was really excited when I heard that she was interested in making a film. And I think, you know, when we were approaching a screenplay together, one of the discussions was about how to, you know, which threads of the book we were going to keep from the book to the film. But also about how to, because the book is quite interior. in a sense, you know, and how we

how we externalised all that emotion, that interior emotion, and show it on screen. And in some ways, it was easy could be just brought in another character so they could talk instead of just think. But one of the ways, which I think Chloe is brilliant at, and you can see that in her film Nomad Land and the rider,

is that she is brilliant at externalising what somebody is feeling by their environment, by their landscape. So you get these huge, punchy shots of wood. and extraordinary kind of decaying trunks and stuff like that. It's quite glorious.

Yeah, Chloe loves a forest. Yeah. She's also said something interesting about not really understanding Shakespeare herself. And I wonder whether... I was very grateful she said that as well because not everybody really, really understands Shakespeare. Small hand going up in the room here.

But do you mind that she said that at all? No, not at all. And I think for me, it was a real, I was really, you know, I knew that she was never going to come at this film from a conventional angle, and she wasn't going to make the kind of, sort of conventional kind of period drama where everybody looks squeaky clean,

and there's a lot of mob camps, and people go around saying things like, Pass Me My Rectual. You know, I really never wanted her to Hamlet to be that kind of film, and I knew that she was never going to do that. And I think in a sense it was a stress, for me that she doesn't necessarily come from a culture where you learn a lot of Shakespeare at school like you do in this country.

And I think she's being modest when she said she doesn't understand Shakespeare. I think she does. But in a way, you know, actually, she's told me that Paul Meskell said to her when we were rehearsing Hamlet, which, of course, happens at the end of the film, the first production of the play,

that he'd said to her, it's okay if you don't understand every word. and also that puts you in Anius's position. Yeah, which is so beautifully displayed because you see this grieving mother, slightly recognising something and then hearing some words and the recognition gets stronger.

You know, it is a remarkable point. And I'm mentioning that, Maggie, not to do a kind of, you know, spoil of the movie, but actually it would be a terrible thing if people were put off seeing the film because they felt that the depiction of a dying child, is what defines it because it's about grief and dealing with it

and finding yourself afterwards, isn't it? Yeah, I never ever wanted the book or the film to end with the death of Hamlet because that's not the whole story for us anyway as an audience. And Hamlet dies halfway through the book and the film and then there is, I hope, a kind of big catharsis that you get towards the end

when you see the production of Hamlet. So it is, for me, the book, because the story has always been about where art and stories come from and why we need them. What happens for you next? Well, I've written another book, which is coming out in June, and it's called Land, and it tells the whole story of the country of Ireland via one plot of land. Excellent. That sounds absolutely brilliant.

Would you ever consider just writing for the screen, having seen your work up there now? I would never give up novels. novels is my first and foremost love I will always want to write that but I would be open to doing it again but I think it would have to be the right story and the right people to work with I've realised I was so lucky with this

with Hamnet that the people around me and the people involved and were such, we were all very light-minded and we all wanted the same thing and we all kind of got on well and I think that's so important in the film I can't imagine doing that when you didn't have that element of collaboration

It is a brilliant band of actors isn't it I mean, absolute props to all of them. Incredible. We were so lucky with the cast. They're all amazing. And Paul Mascar is sporting a little bit of jewelry again, isn't he? Was that on demand? Well, you see Shakespeare, the very famous portrait of him, he has an earring. Yeah, so Paul Mascar's got the little earring.

He stepped up with his earring. Yeah, I'm thinking that's going to have its own Instagram account, isn't it, by the end of January. I hope so. Although there are other scenes of Paul Mascar in the film that I think might stem people's minds too. Maggie, it's absolutely lovely to see you. thank you very much indeed for coming in and will you promise on tape

that you'll come back and talk about your new novel when it is published in June I solemnly swear that is marvellous Booker Eve Maggie O'Farrell so you can read the book

in novel form Hamlet and you can now go and see the movie which is just it's a boof movie on the big screen Jane I would recommend if you're going to watch it that you do go and watch it

on the big screen the shots of nature I'm not doing it justice and just saying shots of nature. There's something about the way it's filmed and it's the same with Nomadland isn't it? You know, there's a story in front of you but the

massive landscapes behind shared director of Nomad Land and Hamlet play a huge, huge part in your experience of watching the film. So you're going to say it to the weekend, don't you? I am on Sunday so yes, I'll hear my verdict next week. Excellent, I can't wait for that. And I'm really interested to read

her book about Ireland and the famine, which I know is coming out. So I've got a preview copy of it at the moment. It's called Land. Land, that's right, yeah. And it is journeying through Ireland's history, just featuring one plot of land. Oh, that definitely. Yeah, I think it would hugely tick your boxes. But she's such a gifted writer, Maggie O'Farrow, like a proper, proper will go down in history as a writer of our generation.

and all of the things that she picks, they don't follow one particular theme. She's written books set in Hong Kong in London about sisters, about grief, about childhood, about heat waves. It's astonishing how she can just turn her writer's eye and writer's imagination onto almost any subject. Really, really remarkable. And she's just a lovely person, an absolutely lovely person to talk to.

Apart from that, with nothing good to say about Maggie O'Farrell. She's gifted. She's a lovely woman. I mean, she really is properly, properly gifted. Just briefly, I mentioned compassionate leave or the lack of it sometimes yesterday, and this is from Patricia, who just says, I couldn't go to my grandfather's funeral.

I was a teacher in a London comprehensive at the time. I just don't get this. Why are some employers, either, you know, in the public sphere or elsewhere, just so horrible about that kind of thing. It just seems so unnecessary. Well, we have had emails saying exactly that. It's just awful. And actually they do have an educational theme to them.

Oh, so they're particularly bad, are they? So I suppose if you can't find cover or whatever. But you would have thought, I mean, there is only one funeral for a loved one. Yeah. It's not something that you can go back and revisit. It does seem particularly harsh. I'm also really interested in how some cultures are able to organise funerals or celebrations, whatever they might be,

just so quickly and so efficiently when, you know, It just seems to be quite a struggle, particularly if, like my dear old mum, you tie it, as you pointed out, such a vulgar time of year, where so many other people have chosen to do the same thing. But I suppose, Jane, apart from anything else, it's just that we've got used to doing it this way. This way, yeah, so we don't question it. So we don't question it, whereas in other cultures you're following a well-trodden path and the wheels are greased and this is what you do. It's just an interesting difference, isn't it?

Anyway, thank you all very much. Thanks for bearing with. The email address is Jane and Fee at times. Dot Radio. Have a very good evening. Goodbye. Good evening. Congratulations.

You've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this. live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, two till four, on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale, and if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler. Thank you.

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