This enduring, much-loved classic about wrongful incarceration and dreams of liberation is an unlikely but irresistible joy in the lockdown eraSee the other classic missed films in this seriesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolationIn a week when my home was turned into a kind of Ikea-heavy minimum security unit, and I was treated by the government like a benign 80-year-old lifer who is trusted to go out once a day, watching The Shawshank Redemption for the first time was a chastening slap round the chops. Annoyed you can’t go to the pub? Hey, at least your only option for a beer doesn’t involve bargaining with a sadistic
prison warden dangling you from a rooftop!
My only real sense of the film came from a friend complaining about an immersive Secret Cinema screening, where he and his girlfriend, having spent £60 each to have a nice date together, were put on prison buses, given the role of convicts, and split up for most of the evening. Perhaps for some long-suffering couples this is what you actually pay for.