Review: HAMLET at National Theatre (Lyttelton)

Comparing the many and varied styles and approaches to staging The Bard’s longest and most famous play is a sure way to start an argument among theatre aficionados and certainly among theatre critics. For me, the best of recent years was Benedict Cumberbatch’s turn as the sane-ish, Danish Prince, staged at the Barbican in 2015. But not everyone would agree. My esteemed colleague Michael Billington (then at The Guardian), saw fit to pour considerable scorn on Lyndsey Turner’s production, calling it half-baked in his 2★★️ review of August that year.

The Lyttelton’s new production manages to tick an awful lot of boxes - specifically in relation to casting, where a broader inclusivity has been used to good effect and has proved particularly successful. Given the oft-dark subject matter, there’s a very strong attempt to imbue light-hearted brush strokes to interactions and the plethora of familiar speeches and grand soliloquising is frequently sped-through with very little time wasted pouring over the ponderous and painful.

The end result is possibly the most comic and upbeat Hamlet I have ever witnessed but it may not be to everyone’s taste. Abeysekera’s jaunty delivery (even glib on occasions and prone to breaking of the fourth wall with his reedy vowels and askance glances), results in a remarkably accessible telling of the tale of a Danish Prince being visited by his father’s ghost (Ryan Ellsworth) who demands revenge over his murderous brother Claudius (Alistair Petrie) who used poison to steal the crown and a month later is marrying his widow Gertrude (Ayesha Dharker). As usual, innocent individuals get caught up in the chaos, notably the naively bubbly Ophelia (Francesca Mills) who loves the young Prince but is rejected utterly and drowns consumed by grief and confusion. Her father Polonius (Geoffrey Streatfeild) also succumbs, accidentally killed by Hamlet, and her brother Laertes (Tom Glenister) who dies duelling but not before implicating the usurping king’s regicide. In short, what starts as a bit of jolly ghost hunting and a family wedding, ends with most of the cast lying around the stage, dead or dying.

Who doesn’t love a period, Royal tragedy? Talking of period, Ben Stones’ set and costume designs strike an effective balance between grungy modern and ceremonial military garb, parachuted into the grandeur of a palace with its Nordic Versailles walls and flooring. Finally honourable mention must go to the two notable side-kicks to proceedings - Hamlet’s former childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hari Mackinnon and Joe Bolland) who between them, add still further levity as they traverse the tightrope of formal acquiescence to the demands of the new King, and their loyalty to their one-time friend. Here, as blond-mopped, bumbling public schoolboys, they are every inch a pair of useless buffoons, caught between a rock and a hard place.

HAMLET continues its run at National Lyttelton, until 22nd November.