I’ll be giving this a miss.
When William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, the titular character was aged about 30, so it was always bound to provoke interest when stage and screen veteran Sir Ian McKellen was cast in the role.
The new age-blind production of the play officially opened up at the Theatre Royal Windsor this week, a mere 50 years since the 82-year-old actor first played the part.
Critics have called it “daring”, “compelling” and “a haphazard mess”.
I don’t need to see it to go with the latter – and an 82 year old Hamlet, FFS. How old are Claudius and Gertrude? Over 100, I suppose. Besides, it wouldn’t have been necessary to murder Hamlet’s father, as at that age, it would just be a matter of time and nature would do the deed. If he needed hurrying up, they could just kick away his zimmer frame.
I avoid any “reworking” of Shakespeare like the plague. I like it delivered straight and set in the appropriate time period. So I will avoid this, just as I avoided McKellan’s Richard III cast as some sort of Nazi. It’s neither clever nor edgy, it’s just pretentious hogwash riding on the coattails of someone more talented than themselves.
Eccentric decisions include cutting up Hamlet’s first, searing soliloquy: McKellen begins it, only to leave the stage and return to resume his thoughts while spinning on a stationary exercise bike. To be or not to be is later delivered at a barber’s. If the point is that we have the deepest of thoughts in the most banal of places, these scenes still feel strained and removed from the rest of the play.
Yup. One to avoid.
I cannot stand Benedictine Cucumber, but his NT:Live version of Hamlet from 2015 was pretty good compared to this…travesty.
Sexist! They should have cast Judi Dench in the role
I hate Shakespeare with the same passion I hate football. It’s the most over-hyped, nonsensical twaddle that was ever written
It was of its time and should be taken in that context. Shakespeare was a borrower, but a borrower who embellished. What he wrote was entertainment for the masses. He wasn’t highbrow and nor were his works. Many of our everyday terms can be traced back to Shakespeare, so I dispute the twaddle bit.
I love Shakespeare but I don’t think I would if my exposure had been confined to Shakespeare at school and sub-standard productions but I’ve enjoyed RSC productions both ‘on tour’ (where they disappointingly tend to meddle with the period/place) and in Stratford (more traditional). Shakespeare’s literary skills were superb and the RSC makes the language and the plots and sub-plots intelligible.
My suspension of disbelief, however, couldn’t stretch to an elderly Hamlet.
I think I was fortunate at school as the teacher who introduced it to me was good at her craft.
I’m with you on the football Bucko, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Well, obviously, same here on that one. Nice touch.
I studied 12th Night (or what you will) for O level. I never tire of it as a play.
For me it was Hamlet – which is why I despise what they’ve done here, and Henry IV Part One. I touched on that one when writing Reiver. Indeed, it was the play that inspired the novel and I unashamedly borrowed Shakespeare’s characterisation of Henry Percy.
I heartily dislike all of Shakespears works, having been force fed them at school. I was force fed othe literature, but some I came to love, but the bard, Never ! I don’t give a fig what the duece they do with these plays, the more they mangle them, the better !
I was brought to like Shakespeare by a young teacher who loved his subject, wanted us to appreciate English, not just pass the exam, which however was easy once he had done with us. This was in rural, isolated Scotland. He also brought us to appreciate Burns and many modern English authors and poets. After that my experience was bettered by attending small theatre productions where actors spoke clearly gestured with vigour, which on telly would look like hamming it up. And I was definitely working class.
It is no more difficult than a play about Scousers, Geordies, Norn Irish, Black Country folk, Weegies, etc. spoken as or by the locals.
Admittedly actors speaking / mumbling jive with a few car chases might appeal more now.
But who, in 3 hundred years time will be quoting, even unintentially, George Richard Raymond Martin.
My experience was similar. My English teacher was somewhat eccentric, but she loved her subject. I also think that starting with the histories worked for me because I also had an interest in English history. I then set about finding out just how much Shakespeare had altered the facts to suit Elizabethan propaganda. I even developed a little sympathy for Richard III.
I’m agnostic to the bard, however I don’t see the point of teaching kids this stuff at school. So many leave education unable to compose a decent paragraph that I wonder if the time couldn’t be better spent?
I don’t think that much can be done to help kids who spend more than ten years in school and emerge at the end of it unable to write or count.
I could read, write and count before I went to school. This was considered normal when I was five years old.
Me too LR, yet these days they discourage parents from teaching their own children to read and write pre school as it won’t be taught the ‘right way’.
’ I avoid any “reworking” of Shakespeare like the plague.’
Hope that doesn’t include ‘West Side Story’…?
Ah, that’s different. Although the basic storyline was followed, it was a different work and wasn’t presented as Shakespeare. I was fairly content when they did a few modern takes on other plays about ten years back. They didn’t bastardise the original play, just took the plot and rewrote it, which is what Shakespeare did. What I’m objecting to is the pompous, self-indulgent wankery going on with this version of Hamlet.
The Forbidden Planet was OK too. When I saw it as a kid I didn’t know anything about The Tempest.
Years ago, I remember reading a western novel. Can’t recall who wrote it, but it was a straight rip off of Henry IV Part 1. No mention was made of Shakespeare.