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The Review - THEATRE by TOM FOOT
Published: 11 December 2008

Claudius (Patrick Stewart) and Gertrude (Penny Downie)

Who cares if the Doctor couldn’t make it?

HAMLET
Novello Theatre

SO– the Time-lord is out of joint. David Tennant, aka Dr Who, called in sick for Tuesday’s press night performance of the much-hyped Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet.
Director Gregory Doran appeared on stage before the show to announce Mr Tennant had suffered a “severe back injury” and was “gutted” not to be there.
Had the Doctor slipped a disc during one last mission aboard the Tardis? Or perhaps his spine was exterminated by a Dalek? These questions must remain unanswered, but his absence was not met with universal anguish. Perhaps I was mistaken, but the Novello’s absurdly middle-class audience appeared to revel in this accidental deposition of celebrity.
Step forward Edward Bennett, regenerated from the role of Laertes. Peculiar, arrogant and wonderfully acerbic, Bennett seized his moment to shine.
Hamlet’s madness, triggered by the conflict between his enduring despair over his father’s death and his peers’ swift path through grief to forgetfulness, was felt with crushing authority. He received a standing ovation at the end. Dr Who? Indeed.
This was a racy romp through the rotten state of Denmark. Four acts are all but done before the interval and many celebrated passages were rearranged or simply shelved, including at least eight lines of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy.
Shakespeare stalwart Patrick Stewart played baddie King Claudius with characteristic clout, but the surprise package was Polonius. Oliver Ford Davies brought side-splitting comedy to the part, drawing huge bursts of spontaneous laughter from the television historian Michael Wood, rocking the aisle to my left.
Shakespeare’s plays have sustained themselves at the helm of the theatrical calendar because of their ability to reinvent themselves through contemporary relevance. Macbeth was staged repeatedly during the Blair/Brown transition saga and the cheapness of life attached to 21st-century warring teenage gangs has been hammered home in recent productions of Romeo and Juliet.
The RSC troupe sported costumes ranging from traditional Elizabethan to the contemporary. Bennett donned a pair of drab jeans and a T-shirt for most of the play. The hotchpotch hinted at a timelessness to the tale.
But what struck me was the lack of modern-day parallels in this psychological thriller: the religious fears, which prevent the desolate Prince from killing himself in dread of eternal damnation, are all but a quirk of history in increasingly secular society. Hamlet beats its chest at the theatrical summit through its supreme insight. And that can be enjoyed with or without the X Factor.
Until January 10

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