Did Cervantes And Shakespeare Meet? ahhhhhh

A new film suggests Shakespeare and Cervantes met in Spain and gave each other literary help.

Did Shakespeare work as a Catholic spy during his 'missing years', between 1586 and 1592? Or did he simply lie low and teach in a Welsh school for a little extra money? Perhaps, as one school of thought has it, he joined a troupe of travelling players, or even enjoyed a prolonged holiday in Italy.

Each of these rival theories has been proposed by historians and academics over the last decade alongside another serious proposition: that Shakespeare spent this time working for the English embassy in Spain.

A new Spanish film has developed this solution to the biographical mystery and come up with a plotline that the producers argue is entirely feasible and will also shed fresh light on the playwright's creative process. William and Miguel, to be released in Britain later this year, stars Will Kemp, the British actor and former classical ballet talent, in the role of Shakespeare.

The screenplay tells of the Bard's imagined encounter with Miguel de Cervantes, Spain's greatest literary hero and the creator of Don Quixote. Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries and are believed to have died on the same date, 23 April, 1616, although the Spaniard was 16 years Shakespeare's senior. The film, which has been written and directed by a rising star of Spanish cinema, Ines Paris, suggests that these two extraordinary writers met and influenced each other before Shakespeare finally returned to England and began the most successful phase of his career in London.

'We did a lot of research during the screenwriting and there is very strong evidence that Shakespeare was well-versed in Cervantes' work,' said producer Antonio Sauro, who will be in Britain this week to talk about the film. Scholars have frequently noted the nautical references in Shakespeare's plays and poems and some say they are proof that he made at least one sea voyage. 'Going to Spain at that time was like going to New York or perhaps Shanghai now. It was the centre of things, so it would have made a lot of sense,' said Sauro. 'Our story is something of a fiction based on facts, but it certainly could have happened.'

William and Miguel concentrates on a point in the late 1580s when both men had left their wives, and it brings an entirely invented element of romance to the story in the form of actress Elena Anaya, who plays their shared lover, Leonor. It was her spirited intervention, the screenplay has it, that brought the literary giants together and effectively changed their writing styles. Sauro explains that whatever happened in Spain, whether the two men ever met or not, something clearly did happen to their creativity. Cervantes, played by Juan Luis Galiardo, is shown to be suffering from writer's block when he meets first Leonor, then Shakespeare. 'Cervantes was very sad prior to this period. He was living as a tax collector and yet, after this, he writes his epic work of black humour, Don Quixote,' said Sauro. 'For Shakespeare too, this time marks a change,' Sauro believes. 'He was writing mainly comedies before this time and then he began to write more of his tragedies.'

Competing theories that Shakespeare spent his time working in schools in Lancashire or Wales, or with a troupe of theatrical players, are based largely on a network of textual references. The truth of his missing years may never be known, and perhaps in this case hard proof does not matter. As the tag line of William and Miguel has it, 'In art and love everything is possible.'

· William and Miguel will be discussed at the International Screenwriters' Festival (3-6 July at Cheltenham Film Studios). For more information visit: screenwritersfestival.co.uk

A tale of two writers

Miguel de Cervantes

Born: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in Alcala de Henares, Spain, in 1547.
Died: Madrid on 23 April, 1616, aged 68.
Faith: Possibly studied with Jesuits in Cordoba or Seville.
Love: Married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, the much younger daughter of a well-to-do peasant, in 1584 and left her in the late 1580s.
Derring do: Fought at the Battle of Lepanto, was captured by Barbary pirates and spent five years as a slave in Algiers before being ransomed by his parents.

William Shakespeare

Born: Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564.
Died: In his home town on same date as Cervantes, aged 52 after retiring in 1613.
Faith: Dangerous Catholic sympathies inherited from his mother, Mary Arden.
Love: Married Anne Hathaway, 26, at the age of 18. She was three months pregnant. Left his family in the late 1580s.
Derring do: Might have been a recusant Catholic spy or joined a troupe of travelling actors. Or both.
Nicknames: The Swan of Avon, or the Immortal Bard.

· This article was amended on Sunday July 8 2007. We pointed out that Cervantes and Shakespeare died on the same date, 23 April 1616. We should clarify that this wasn't the same day. Spain used the Gregorian calendar, but Britain used the Julian calendar until 1752, when a correction of 11 days was made.