This production has received a lot of criticism - we were watching different plays! My first theatre visit post-Lockdown restrictions, where you sit next to people again! Was worrying in that people seemed to not be wearing masks, and those people always seem to have a cough... but I wore mine, so maybe that is enough...
Anyway, the play's the thing... Apart from feeling robbed (no to be or not to be speech), you get the spectacle of a fantastic scaffolded set which is well utilised, some of the audience being on the stage (!) Ian McKellen on an exercise bike (!) Jenny Seagrove's Wallander accent, Sir Ian's beautiful diction and pronunciation and feeling, and Gandalf inna hoodie! Franscesca Annis is the ghost of Hamlet's father - whaaat?
Overall, this is a wonderful ensemble piece - you can hear the lines, and the rhythm, people speak the iambic pentameter really well. Ophelia's character is particularly well rounded out - it could have been creepy or exploitative as the super young girlfriend of the great, but aged, Dane - instead she is made a soulful creative, who plays guitar and works on her music and songs, and is a bit bemused that Hamlet should love her (and definitely being pushed as a distraction by other people). But she isn't being super controlled by her brother or father as can happen in other productions or indeed Queen Gertrude and she actually has some personality rather than hanging around waiting for Hamlet to stop being odd or to die dramatically and sadly. When Hamlet is trying to reveal his mother and step-father as potential murders of his father and being very inappropriate with Ophelia, her shock is genuine because he is genuinely being inappropriate rather than a lover having a personality transformation.
Sir Ian shaves his head on stage; Jenny Seagrove has a wig which she never regains (surely this is below her Queenly status); Ophelia's mental breakdown is genuinely distressing.
Missing though are Guildenstern and Rosencrantz being sent off and murdered; the explanation for why Ophelia's Father hides behind the curtain in the Queen's chamber so that Hamlet randomly stabbing a curtain to kill him is a bit of a damp squib and without meaning; as before no to be or not to be (it's just gone from the play wholesale), and the gravediggers are very annoying and not funny - the Yorrick seen lacks pathos and sympathy.
However, Ophelia's grave scene is dramatic and moving; as is the scene when the Queen drinks from the cup meant for Hamlet; there is fencing and by the end the stage is shockingly strewn with bodies. No Prince of Elsinore though who normally finds the carnage at the end. But Frances Barber vs Sir Ian McKellen is a wonderful luvvie off and worth the ticket price alone! Jenny Seagrove also brings sympathy to Queen Gertrude and the scene between herself and Hamlet is moving, as is her mental distress as she descends (wigless) into horror of knowing her second husband murdered her first and that her son knows that she knows that they know that he knows....But don't try to work out the age dynamics of Gertrude being the aged Dane's Mum! Some of the background characters too have more oomph about them, and the use of lighting is brilliant. The scaffolding set and lighting combined really gave the sense of a fortress mentality.
I think the production has been unfairly criticised and go and see it cos it's McKellen doing Shakespeare! It's not as terrible as it's being described to be, just take it for what it is and enjoy!
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