This is a song about grief and a father’s attempt to bring his son back to life in a play for the theatre.

It’s based on the book ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell, the imagined story of the life of William Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet. The story is told from the points of view of Hamnet himself and Anne Hathaway (his mother) recast as Agnes (the name used in her father’s will; pronounced An-yiss at the time).

Only three facts are known about Hamnet – his baptism date, the fact he was a twin, and the date of his death aged 11.

I found it a deeply affecting book that I’m finding difficult to shake; it’s set in Stratford-upon-Avon where I live and work, and my son went to the same school (although obviously 450 years later). I cried at the end of the book - I found the last scenes devastating.

William Shakespeare is largely absent from the book, and is never named; he is just husband, father, latin tutor, embryonic playwright and living far away in London.

The book suggests that the play Hamlet (a name used interchangeably with Hamnet at that time) was Shakespeare’s attempt to bring his son back to life as a way to process grief. The scenes in the play where Hamlet talks to his father’s ghost are re-imagined as Shakespeare seeking to lay down his own life so that his son may live; father and son swap places and the father is the ghost, the son reborn. It is all told from Agnes’ point of view, watching in the crowd.

If true, it would be a remarkable memorial to his son; one of the most famous and long-lived plays in the world. His name lives on.

I’ve taken the arrogant step to write this from the point of view of one of the world’s greatest playwrights, as he was a minor character in this book, despite overshadowing everything in it.

The song is an inner monologue/conversation with both wife (verses) and son (choruses). The middle eight is an impotent howl, using words from the ghost scene in Hamlet itself, although not necessarily in the right order!