Jane Hawking: ‘There were fourof usin our marriage’

Motor neurone disease and physics both played a part in her split from her husband Stephen Hawking, she says. She talks about the challenges they faced in their 30-year marriage and about how close The Theory of Everything was to reality

Here is Stephen Hawking's verdict on the movie about his marriage: it needed more science. And here is Jane Hawking's verdict: it needed more emotion. Those opposing views on The Theory of Everything, which brought Eddie Redmayne an Oscar and a Bafta for his portrayal of Stephen and Felicity Jones Oscar and Bafta nominations for her portrayal of Jane, reveal a great deal about not only the personalities of the world's most famous scientist and his former wife, but also one of the major strands of difference in their relationship.

But the truth is that science is probably more absent from the film than emotion, because what the film represents is a triumph of Jane's experience and persona after decades in which the family was viewed solely through the prism of Stephen's genius, who as well as being the world's best-known scientist is also the world's best-known sufferer of motor neurone disease (MND).

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