Ian Charleson played Hamlet at the National Theatre in London in 1988 while dying of AIDS. He was 38. The performance became legendary – described by critics as the finest Hamlet of their generation. He died in January 1990 at the age of 40. Elsinore tells that story. And to tell it, the production filmed in London and Kent.
Elsinore is directed by Simon Stone (The Dig, The Daughter) from a screenplay by Stephen Beresford (Pride). It stars Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson – Scott himself a former Hamlet, having played the role at the Almeida Theatre in 2017. Olivia Colman co-stars.
The wider ensemble includes Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson, Monica Dolan, Juliet Stevenson, Joe Locke, Adeel Akhtar, Matthew Beard, David Dawson, Kadiff Kirwan, Dickie Beau and Peter Mullan. Produced by StudioCanal, LD Entertainment, Lucky Red and Magnolia Mae Films.
The film had its world premiere at the 53rd Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2026. It opens in US theatres on November 20, with a UK release on January 29, 2027.
Scott's performance has received widespread critical acclaim from its festival showings.
The production filmed inside the Gillian Lynne Theatre on Drury Lane – the West End venue at the corner of Drury Lane and Parker Street in Covent Garden whose 1,300-seat auditorium provided the theatrical environment for Ian Charleson's preparation and performance. The Gillian Lynne Theatre made history in 2018 when it became the first West End venue to be named after a woman, honouring choreographer Gillian Lynne.
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The exterior of the National Theatre and its surroundings on Queen's Walk near Waterloo Bridge were also used for filming. The trailer confirms exterior shots of Lasdun's brutalist concrete complex on the South Bank – its terraces and flyover walkways instantly recognisable as the home of British theatre since 1976. In one shot, Andrew Scott leans against the riverside wall on Queen's Walk, looking out over the Thames. The building behind him. The river in front.
The trailer also reveals filming at Prospect Cottage on Dungeness Road, Dungeness, Romney Marsh in Kent. The small black timber house with its yellow window frames, its garden of flint stones and salvaged metal on the shingle beach, its Derek Jarman poem painted on the exterior wall. Originally a Victorian-era fisherman's hut, Prospect Cottage was purchased by director, artist, gay rights activist and gardener Derek Jarman in 1987 and was his home until his death from AIDS-related complications in February 1994.
The choice of Prospect Cottage as a filming location is not incidental. Jarman and Charleson were contemporaries – both gay men living through the AIDS crisis, both artists whose final years were defined by it. Jarman died four years after Charleson. His cottage on the shingle beach at Dungeness – isolated, defiant, beautiful in its peculiar way – became a most visited site in British cultural geography after his death. Using it in Elsinore connects the two men's stories through a location that carries Jarman's presence in every stone of its garden.
Beyond London and Dungeness, filming took place across locations in the UK, with Italy also reported as a filming location for the production's international chapter.
Elsinore opens in theatres from November 20, 2026.
StudioCanal // Wikipedia
© StudioCanal, Focus Features // Photo Anthony Dickenson
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