Words

I've had a letter...

Hello,

I am absolutely loving the Hamlet blog - the play happens to be my personal favourite so it's nice to see the Dane finally gets a blog where he can vent (or I can catch up on various versions of the show). I'm sure you're well versed on all of the Hamlet variations currently available but I did want to mention that the company for which I work is running a competition for two free tickets to Factory's presentation of Hamlet at Shakespeare's Globe Theater at midnight (the very witching time of night, perhaps?) on September 6th. It sticks to the script by only uses props provided by the audience and each cast member can play multiple roles - and which actor plays which character is decided upon by the audience as well. Should be quite interesting, I'm really looking forward to it!

If you'd like some more information about the show and the competition, you can see a listing here:
http://www.spoonfed.co.uk/spooners/competition-394/win-2-tickets-to-factorys-hamlet-430/

Otherwise, I look forward to more blogging!

Cheers,
Meaghan

Thanks Meaghan. Hope the show goes well for you and the audience. More reviews coming soon, I promise!

New Tennant in Elsinore

Have any members of the press used that headline this morning? Anyone? Either way, to save some work, here's a link to Outpost Gallifrey's round-up of reviews for David Tennant's Hamlet. Overwhelmingly positive, especially from Michael Billington of The Guardian, whose piece reads like a more articulate version of a post from this very blog. He doesn't, for example, like the cuts:

"Tennant is an active, athletic, immensely engaging Hamlet. If there is any quality I miss, it is the character's philosophical nature, and here he is not helped by the production. Following the First Quarto, Doran places "To be or not to be" before rather than after the arrival of the players: perfectly logical, except that there is something magnificently wayward about the Folio sequence in which Hamlet, having decided to test Claudius's guilt, launches into an unexpected meditation on human existence. [...] Unforgivably, Doran also cuts the lines where Hamlet says to Horatio, "Since no man knows of aught he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be." Thus Tennant loses some of the most beautiful lines in all literature about acceptance of one's fate."

Nothing on the state of Fortinbras though.

Fortinbras is not in the main computer.

"Shot entirely in front of a green screen, Hamlet A.D.D. (2009) features live-action characters in an animated world."

Which could either turn out to be really fun, or ruddy awful. The actor playing the dane is both producing and directing and has William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet under his tunic. Biggest star seems to be Majel Barrett off of Star Trek as a Queen Robot who appears, I'm guessing, during The Mousetrap.

"Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better."

HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWSFEED EDITION).