Andrew Scott, who has played Hamlet on stage 150 times, stars in the film "Elsinore" as Ian Charleson, the Scottish actor who took on the role at the National Theatre in 1989 while dying of AIDS, dying less than two months after his final performance. The film, which will screen at festivals including Toronto and London before its cinema release, marks Scott's first credited producing role and sees him play both Charleson and Charleson's Hamlet, drawing on Scott's own experience as an out gay actor portraying a gay man from an era when being open could end a career.

Charleson, best known for "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi", had a stalled career by the time of his diagnosis but stepped in after Daniel Day-Lewis withdrew from the production citing emotional distress. His doctor, played by Olivia Colman, had warned that the role would be too demanding for someone so ill, yet he split his days between hospital treatment and rehearsals. Director Simon Stone and screenwriter Stephen Beresford describe the story as legendary in London theatre, with "Elsinore" due in cinemas on 20 November.