Andrew Scott's performance in Simon Stone's Elsinore is being hailed as a career-defining turn that should make him a red-hot favourite for the Oscars. The film, which had its screening at the London Film Festival, follows the real-life story of young actor Ian Charleson, who took on the role of Hamlet while dying of AIDS.
A Performance of a Lifetime
Scott, who was criminally overlooked during awards season for his role in Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers, delivers a devastating performance that critics say would require a collective bout of insanity for Academy voters to ignore. The film opens at London's National Theatre in 1989, where a cast member pleads with Hamlet, frozen speechless at the ghost of his father, to "Just say the f***ing line," before revealing the name plate "Daniel Day-Lewis" on the dressing room door.
The Story of Ian Charleson
Rewinding a month, the film shows Charleson doing spirit-draining video auditions for action movies and navigating gay Soho, where he has an awkward altercation about the AIDS epidemic with old friend Derek Jarman (David Dawson). He enjoys a full-on luvvie time with best friend and casting director Patsy Pollock (Billie Piper), but the cosiness vanishes when Charleson discovers a large spot on his face, a sign that his HIV is developing to full-blown AIDS.
Just as Charleson is enduring another cheeky London cabbie humming the theme tune to Chariots of Fire (he loathes being recognised for his role as Eric Liddell), he hears Day-Lewis has left Hamlet. Soon after, he gets the call he'd always dreamed of from director Richard Eyre (Johnny Flynn): to replace Day-Lewis as Hamlet.
Joy Amid Tragedy
Despite being utterly terrified of dying, Charleson takes the part, with only Eyre aware of his condition. He tells blunt-humoured stage door manager Linda (Monica Dolan) the spot is a sinus infection; "To breathe or not to breathe," she quips, one of endless perfectly placed Hamlet references. However, the gay costume guy can tell Charleson has scarily shrunk in size and asks, "Do you have a good doctor?" Enter Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman on fine form), a pioneer at extending the lives of AIDS patients.
There's a never-ending pulse of joy between Colman and Scott. "If you are going to play this part, there'll be no more talk of death," she demands. "That might be tricky," he retorts. "What about urine?" she asks him at the clinic. "I'm fine with this coffee, thanks."
When the trauma does come, it's almost unbearably moving. The crushingly beautiful moment between Charleson and his dying friend Georgie (Luke Thompson) is hard to watch without physically quivering with emotion. Firebrand Jarman returns with a blisteringly political call for Charleson to go public about his condition, while Peter Mullan appears briefly as Charleson's father, bringing another tsunami of tears.
As Charleson says, "I wanted to scale the heights." And in Elsinore, Andrew Scott reaches highs seldom witnessed on cinema screens. The film is screening at the London Film Festival on October 9 and 16, and is on general release from January 29.
