Exclusive interview with Benet Brandreth and his novel featuring Shakespeare as a spy in Venice during the missing years of his life
“I was discussing Shakespeare’s lost years, the period between 1585 and 1592 when the young William Shakespeare disappears from the historical record,” says The Spy of Venice author Benet Brandreth. “And during which, he goes from being a glover’s son in middle England to budding playwright in London. I learned that one theory was that he had gone to Italy during that time and if he had done so he would certainly have gone to Venice.”
In this thriller set in Tudor times, William Shakespeare, although married, is a bit of a playboy. He’s forced to leave Stratford for London, where he joins a band of actors and starts writing plays. Powerful politicians send Shakespeare to Venice as a spy. Shakespeare is dazzled by the beauty of the city but the politics are very Catholic. His life is in danger. and he must tread carefully. With eight years missing from our knowledge of Shakespeare, and so many of his plays set in Italy, perhaps that’s where he was. Brandreth evokes the time and feel of Venice. The structure of the book is formatted as a play with acts and scenes.
“The idea of Shakespeare in Venice was immediately fascinating,” says Brandreth. “The greatest playwright in the greatest city of the sixteenth century. The question of how Shakespeare became that genius we know was part of the fascination. Did he find inspiration in Italy for the change of path from small town shopkeeper to London dramatist? I adore his use of language but even more I admire and find moving and endlessly illuminating his sense of character and motivation. It was the latter that made me think that he would have made a valuable spy but also a dangerous man to be around. The late sixteenth century is rich in events and characters though, from vengeful popes to poetic courtesans.”
Brandreth did a great deal of research and is the rhetoric coach to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Brandreth did research at the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington D.C. and had a colleague look in the Venetian State Archives in Venice.
“I started with a good understanding of Shakespeare’s works and his life and his use of language,” says Brandreth. “Rhetoric is the art of persuasion and it would have formed the sum and substance of Shakespeare’s education and his understanding of words. I also knew Venice well, having visited it numerous times since I was a boy. It’s a fascinating city. During its heyday it attracted the most intriguing of people. Tintoretto, Veronica Franco and Vittoria Accoramboni. Fortunately there were several contemporary accounts from English travelers to Venice at the turn of the sixteenth century, Coryatt and Fynes-Morrison, that enabled me to lend historical color. And I benefited from speaking to some knowledgeable people.”
“I really dug into the geopolitics of the time,” says Brandreth. “My understanding of that was very anglo-centric, unsurprisingly, but I quickly learned that England was in many ways peripheral to the great disputes of the kings and princes of Europe and ever present Ottomans. I aimed to be historically accurate and even tried to use only words that could be found in Shakespeare’s plays.”
The role of the Pope in Italian affairs and in the disputes between Phillip of Spain and the French kings and how England’s heresy was a key part of plotting the book. As was the true story of Pope Sextus V and his desire for revenge against Vittoria Accoramboni, and her flight to Venice to seek safety.
Brandreth has written a sequel, The Assassin of Verona, released in the UK in paperback. The Spy of Venice has been optioned by Clerkenwell Films and has a screenwriter attached. Brandreth is writing an academic book on rhetoric in performance, a companion volume for the Arden Shakespeare Performance Editions. He’s also writing a TV sit-com and plotting three new novels.
Benet Brandreth was born in London and is still based there.
The Spy of Venice: A William Shakespeare Novel by Benet Brandreth. Trade Paperback. Publisher: twenty7. March 23, 2017. Language: English. Kindle version Aug 7th. 2018ISBN-13: 978-1785770364 $8.99
(This is Gabrielle Pantera’s final book review for British Weekly. Gabrielle is moving on to pastures new and we thank her for her long service to the British Weekly – with very best wishes for the future)
