'Hamlet' Actors

For no good reason I wondered how many times I've seen Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' on stage recently. It's one of his greats and is one of my favourites. I used to be able to quote huge chunks of it but not these days. In the last 11 years I've seen six different productions. It seems like once an actor reaches a certain age and wants to prove their theatrical credentials they want to play or get offered the part of the Dane.

2009   Jude Law (Wyndham's)

2010   Rory Kinnear (National Theatre)

2011   Michael Sheen (Young Vic)

2015   Benedict Cumberbatch (Barbican)

2017   Andrew Scott (Almeida)

2018   Michelle Terry (The Globe)

I've yet to see a truly great production of 'Hamlet' and all of these productions have something about them that disappointed. It's not the acting, more the production itself, the director's vision of the play, usually wanting to do something 'different' with it, or the sets and staging of the piece.  Jude Law's version was a bit unmemorable (other than lots of running) and the worst from my point of view was Michael Sheen's with it's awful setting in a mental hospital and Ophelia wandering around dropping coloured tablets rather than flowers. It was all so unnecessary and pointless.

Benedict Cumberbatch's version was simply a star vehicle and I really disliked the rubble-strewn second half (I kept worrying someone would turn an ankle walking on it all). Andrew Scott's version was interesting and had a novel take on using technology but what let it down was a new final scene set in the afterlife. No! If the play needed an afterlife scene then I'm sure Shakespeare would've written it. 'Hamlet' ends with Fortinbras taking the crown of leaderless Denmark.

I think my favourites are Rory Kinnear and Michelle Terry, largely because they know how to speak Shakespeare's verse, it's in their bones and they speak so naturally. The productions weren't great but the actors were. Michelle Terry made me want to read the play again and savour some of those great speeches.

The first production of 'Hamlet' I ever saw was with Derek Jacobi playing the title role in 1978, fresh from his huge success with 'I Clavdivs'. He's also part of a theatrical tradition of great Hamlet's passing on a copy of the play from one to another, started when Michael Redgrave gave the small book to Peter O'Toole. The book went to Derek Jacobi and he passed it to Kenneth Branagh who still has it. I wonder who he'll eventually give it to. I saw the book in an exhibition at the British Library a few years ago.

That's six productions in only 11 years so that mean we're overdue another production. I wonder who will play Hamlet next?