With the Almeida’s acclaimed production of Hamlet about to transfer to the West End there’s never been a better time for first timers to discover this fascinating play.
Some people are intimidated by the prospect of Shakespeare’s dense text and this production is nearly four hours long, but don’t be. There’s seldom been a production that’s clearer and easier to follow than this one plus you get to see one of our best young actors, Andrew Scott (Moriarty in TVs Sherlock) at his best.
As the play opens the new king Claudius is celebrating his coronation whilst above the restless ghost of his brother the former king walks the battlements.
Prince Hamlet is depressed by his father’s death, the way his mother so quickly married Claudius and the fact that this uncle now rules Denmark in his dad’s place.
Claudius and his queen, Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) are concerned about the young man’s dark mood and recruit the help of their political adviser Polonius to get to the bottom of Hamlet's apparent insanity. They send for his old university friends to cheer him up and Polonius engages his daughter Ophelia who Hamlet has dated to draw her boyfriend into conversation whilst he listens in.
Meanwhile Hamlet is led to meet his father’s ghost who reveals that he was murdered by his brother Claudius. Hamlet vows revenge but how can this be best achieved?
Hamlet is hampered by over thinking everything resulting in inaction but he does stage a play about the murder so he can observe whether his uncle looks guilty. He does!
This truly tips Hamlet to the edge of madness. He fights with his mother and girlfriend Ophelia and even stabs her father Polonius to death which drives Ophelia to suicide provoking the return of her brother who challenges Hamlet to a sword fight to the death.
The fight is rigged by the corrupt king Claudius, with rapiers and refreshments poisoned in order to be rid of his troublesome nephew, Hamlet but everything does not go to plan.
Who survives and triumphs and who dies? I'm not going to spoil the ending for you but it’s a shocker that leaves the stage strewn with corpses.
Throughout the play Hamlet ruminates on some of the mysteries of existence including the famous “To Be or Not To Be” speech in which he considers suicide. Another famous moment finds Hamlet clutching the skull of a long dead court jester, Yorick, prompting the famous line “Alas Poor Yorick, I knew him well...” before musing on the mysteries of life and death.
If all that sounds a bit ponderous, don’t worry, Scott makes the philosophical prince so engaging that you’ll hang on every word.
In the season of two plays and a musical I’ve directed this winter I’ve attempted to programme work in which great writers have reflected on similar issues to those we face today. This January, at the Union Theatre, with many of us feeling politically impotent in the face of dismaying election results, Chekhov’s play Three Sisters felt unusually immediate in its depiction of the obsolete intelligentsia of 1900. This was followed by a rare revival of Sondheim's expressionistic musical Anyone Can Whistle in which one half of the electorate regard the other as dangerously insane, the topicality of which speaks for itself.