In spring 2006 Sir Antony Sher and the RSC were to stage Hamlet with a South African company as part of a year-long celebration of Shakespeare's complete works. But when the company arrived they were in a state of total shock. One of their number had been murdered four days earlier, along with his childhood friend.
On Easter Saturday 2006, talented young actor Brett Goldin and fashion designer Richard Bloom left a dinner party in Cape Town just after midnight. Thirty hours later they were found by the side of a road tied up, naked and shot in the back of their heads.
Goldin, 28, was already a TV star in South Africa and saw the trip to Britain to play Guildenstern in Janet Suzman's production of Hamlet alongside Sir Antony Sher as his big break.
Sher, who admits that the murder has become an obsession for him, takes a dangerous trip back to a Cape Town that has changed since he grew up there, heading right into the ghettoes where Goldin's murderers come from.
Taking part in the documentary, directed by Oscar-winner Jon Blair, are the still-distraught relatives and friends of the two men, as well as senior figures in South Africa including archbishop Desmond Tutu. All agree that violence has reached an unacceptable level.
In a country where 18,500 people were murdered from 2005-2006, Goldin and Bloom's murder has made little impact. Tabloids even joked about the fact that the two men were found naked and published graphic images of their bodies.
Actor John Kani, who also played in the same production of Hamlet as Goldin would have, says to Sher: 'What happened to humanity, what happened to that 'thing' that makes us human beings and not animals? At the moment, even animals only kill because there's a desperate need to survive. Why would you rob somebody and then kill them? You've got what you want. It's senseless and it's non-African.'
Every South African has a story to tell about how violence affected them directly. In a key moment, Sher asks his South African camera crew, who turn the cameras on themselves and relate horrific incidents - but ones that happen every day.
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