Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Rupert Goold
Revival Director: Sophie Drake
This RSC touring production of Hamlet premiered in Stratford last Spring and the revival Director, Sophie Drake has made ingenious adaptations to Rupert Goold’s ambitious original show to enable it to tour.
The King of Denmark, Old Hamlet, has died and been succeeded by his brother, Claudius, who has since married the widowed Queen within weeks of Old Hamlet’s death. When his ghost appears to Prince Hamlet, his son, and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius, the young Prince plots revenge. To cover his intentions, he feigns madness… and so begins the tragedy.
This Hamlet is visually stunning and uses video and sound to create atmosphere and sense of place. The show begins on 14 April 1912 – as identified by (rather distracting) neon digital clocks around the stage. The reason for the choice of that date becomes clear as we see that the entire play takes place at sea on a storm-tossed ship that eventually sinks. The creative team brings that experience to life amazingly well – that’s where Drake’s ingenuity comes in, because on the RSC main stage, the deck of the original production’s ship truly did pitch and toss to an incredible angle, as at the end of the film Titanic, with the actors sliding dramatically to their deaths down the upturned deck. On this unmoving stage, the videography and actors do a great job of recreating the storms and the pitching and tossing of the ship, although there are a couple of dangerously comedic Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Star Trek moments where the cast careers off to one side of the stage in response to a ‘wave’.
The big question is, why this Titanic link? Why set Hamlet – which takes place in Elsinore Castle, the royal court of the Danish King and in a nearby graveyard – on a luxury liner? No doubt there is a link, and probably a profound one at that, but when the reason is never revealed, or even explained in the programme notes, it becomes a distraction rather than an enrichment.
That – admittedly fundamental – question aside, there is a great deal in this production to admire. The staging, lighting and use of sound and video is slick and impressive. There are also wonderful performances from Richard Cant (who gives a comedy masterclass as Polonius), Raymond Coulthard as the murderous but utterly believable and relatable Claudius, and Ian Hughes and CJ Johnson as the Player King and Queen. The Players’ scenes are real highlights of the show – their polyphonic cacophony of dissonant sound and stylised choreography is fabulous.
Tackling the role of Hamlet is Ralph Davis. This is obviously a high point for any actor and there is much to appreciate in his depiction of the young Prince – his rendition of the “To Be or not To Be“ soliloquy is very moving, as are many of his more naturally delivered speeches. But some of his affectations – ticks, face pulling, gestures, shouting – are extreme and can become jarring rather than the believable pretence to be mad that Shakespeare devised as cover for his revenge taking. As Hamlet himself instructs the troop of Players, “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end … is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature… Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve…”
A thought-provoking evening, with much to admire and enjoy.
Runs until 21 March 2026
