Who's Been To The Theatre?

When I was sixteen, I saw Robert Lindsay as Hamlet at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. It was electrifying - astounding - a magnificent production that set the bar high for Shakespeare in the theatre for me. The defining Hamlet of my childhood.

I saw Kenneth Branagh in the early nineties at Stratford. Dull, stolid, boring. Such a let down.

Last night I saw David Tennant at the RSC's Courtyard Theatre, their temporary residence whilst they are rebuilding the main house in Stratford.

I will not go to see this play again for many years, becasue I have now seen the definitive version of my adulthood. It was mercurial, compelling, emotional, sad, too much, too little, amusing, and desperately sad.

I cried with Laertes at Ophelia's death - can you believe it?

Polonius was perfect - not a fool, but a pedant, and so locked in his own world he was unaware of others.

Claudius was a truly smiling villain - believable and apparently trustworthy at the start, wretched at the end. A fantastic journey, a remarkable journey, truly a star trek from Patrick Stewart.

And Hamlet: David Tennant was mannered and natural, and like a big kid, and like the master of all he surveyed: he was a pretty complete Dane for me. He is an astounding actor, and (unlike Branagh) looked much younger than his thirty-odd years, which is so needed in a part which has a man of thirty act like a teenager for so much of the time before growing up fast.

Interesting cuts: "To be or not to be" was, I think, in an unusual place. Most remarkable - the interval comes as Hamlet is about to slay Claudius at prayer: the stage goes dark & resumes twenty minutes later at that point with the lights going up with the two actors on stage in the same positions and continues on. Saturday night cliffhanger stuff.

It kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved it totally; totally. You can't get a ticket, it's sold out. But if you have one - you are in for a treat.

Five stars. Right up there with Turandot at the Royal Opera with Jane Eaglen. Aida in Florence conducted by Zubin Mehta. Glorious. Glorious.