The most famous of all Shakespearean roles, it is possible to overact the part of the Danish prince to the point of nausea (see Olivier’s famous portrayal of Hamlet, with the emphasis firmly on the Ham). Ed Stoppard, however, manages to morph from grief to madness with considerable and highly watchable ease. Like a rugged James Blunt without the limp wrists, Ed, son of Tom, tackles the role first with regal dignity in grief and later finding the humour in madness and the inevitable profound sadness in his character’s demise.
Stoppard impresses in the dramatic elements of the Hamlet role and, crucially, carries off the comic lines, brought out effectively by director Stephen Urwin. This device happily prevents the play becoming too maudlin and the cheery ‘Goodnight mother!’ from Hamlet as he drags the body of his mutilated victim, Polonious, off the stage raised a shout of laughter from the audience.
Anita Dobson plays Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, a slightly more subdued woman than Ange from Eastenders although, God knows, this poor woman has far more to shout about. The character is an interesting one and so full of contradictions that she must present a significant challenge to play. She is a loving mother (possibly too affectionate given the Oedipal slur that has stained this play since Freud first brought it to our attention) yet she marries Hamlet’s uncle within a month of his father’s death which is PDQ even in the days when marriages were largely motivated by politics. She is blind to the faults of her new King, charismatically played by David Robb with just the right amount of smarm, and shows little genuine horror at having to meet with Ophelia so soon after her son has murdered the poor girl’s father. However, her helplessness is well conveyed – as a woman she, like Ophelia, is powerless by definition and finds herself caught in the web of treacherous murder perpetrated by the two men closest to her and which leads accidentally to her death as she drinks the poison intended for her son.
Ophelia is a critical character in the play, a complex role that requires a restrained performance for fear of falling into caricature. Alice Patten acquits herself very well as the tragedy queen, with a sweet innocence that realises its potential to be corrupted into madness when she is spurned by Hamlet and infected with his own insanity.
I really enjoyed this production and thought the way that so much humour was brought out from the profoundly tragic script was a brilliant touch and only served to enhance the tragedy and desolation at the end. For Hamlet to make the audience giggle during his madness only makes him more human and his death scene more pathetic. I disagreed entirely with the girl sitting next to me who had been restless throughout the second half and declared loudly whilst elbowing me in the face as she put her coat on during the final lines in a bid to escape the auditorium without having to applaud the actors at the end, “Darling, it’s simply not Hamletty enough!”
Hamlet runs at the New Ambassador’s Theatre until Saturday 22nd April 2006.
