Evening Standard, 1/20/99 (by Pete Clark)

1. Kenneth Branagh has had nothing whatsoever to do with this film.

2. Love scenes sizzling enough to cause a break-up
Gwyneth Paltrow and her real-life boyfriend allegedly split up because he took exception to the sizzling nature of her love scenes with Joseph Fiennes. This is your chance to judge the validity of his case.

3. This the first chance to see an actor from the Fast Show (Mark Williams) tackle a part of profundity,

4. The screenplay, written by Tom Stoppard, allows those of us who studied Shakespeare and the generation of bloodthirsty Jacobeans who came after to quietly congratulate ourselves on spotting literary in-jokes.

5. This may be the first film ever in which Colin Firth does not score.

6. An opportunity to pay public homage to director John Madden, the only man to have successfully curbed the over-exuberant actorly tendencies of both Antony Sher and Simon Callow.

7. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Martin Clunes as a man behaving well.

8. As it takes two to tango, Joseph Fiennes also takes his clothes off in the love scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow. No girlfriend has as yet walked out on him so perhaps he does not have one. Your chance to audition imaginatively for that role!

9. "Spot the deliberate anachronisms in Shakespeare in Love" is sure to become London's favourite dinner-party game.

10. Marvel at the versatility of Geoffrey Rush as he forsakes the piano to play percussion with his dentures.

11. See Judi Dench as a spiky, blisteringly intelligent Elizabeth I, coming on like M in a ruff and whiteface.

12. See Gwyneth Paltrow don moustache and beard in a doomed attempt to play a man in a society in which no women were allowed on stage.

13. Marvel at the uproar when her deception is unmasked, and reflect on the fact that this precipitated a social revolution, eventually allowing Nicole Kidman to take the London stage without fear of censure.

14. Wonder at the stiffness of the magnificent collars worn by the cast at a time when dry cleaning and the steam iron had yet to be invented.

15. This film centres around an object lesson in the importance of titles. As Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, the featured entertainment was going nowhere. Then the name was changed to Romeo and Juliet and the rest is history.

16. Shakespeare has recently been voted British Personality of the Millennium by Radio 4 listeners. Do you agree with the verdict of the pointy-heads?

17. It is impossible to resist any film which has a running dog gag.

18. It is equally impossible to resist any film which explores the origins of the humourous tendencies of London cabbies.

19. The second most famous playwright in the film does not appear on the credits, nor does the name of the flamboyant actor who plays him. Who are they?

20. Shakespeare in Love is a girls' movie, for boys.

21. See Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) addressing his assembled cast of actors: "Now listen to me, you dregs", showing that attitudes towards thespians have evolved over the past 500 years not a jot.

22. The movie contains a great cigarette joke: "I fancy tobacco has a future." This is said by the villainous Lord Wessex, which gives it a slightly sinister ring.

23. The film is worth seeing just for the bloodthirsty, animal-torturing boy John Webster, who, when asked his opinion of Romeo and Juliet, replies tersely: "Plenty of blood." Webster grew up to be a leading playwright of the Jacobean era, who were to drama what Hammer Horror was to cinema.

24. Nod sagely at the refrain "It's a mystery" usually said by Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), which is used in the context of debt and money but has an underlying meaning about the alchemy of acting and writing. Very smart.

25. Finally, we must all see the film in order to support Gwyneth Paltrow's campaign to become a naturalised Englishwoman.