Brush up your Shakespeare

I - and bimo, and iamsab, and many another - are going to watch Hamlet in Stratford this season, so I was thrilled to find the RSC has put up an interview with the director, Greg Doran. (Why yes, I want to see two particular actors in that play. But I still want the play to be something other than a star vehicle, so finding out about production ideas is good.)

Firstly, I'm intrigued that Doran has cast Patrick Stewart not just as Claudius but also as the Ghost. (One of the elements I loved in the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet on film - that Derek Jacobi as Claudius and Branagh as Hamlet were made up to look as alike as possible given that they as themselves really don't. For the first time, this made me wonder how long the Claudius/Gertrude tryst had been going on, and whether in fact the Ghost's ultimate revenge on Claudius wasn't setting up Hamlet to avenge Hamlet Senior's murder when in fact Hamlet was Claudius' son.) Here's Doran on Claudius:

"When I was talking to Patrick, I quickly reaslised that you mustn't view Claudius through Hamlet's point of view. He's trying to sort out the kingdom. It might not be a completely selfless agenda, but it could be that the old king Hamlet was not a good King. It could be that in order to find stability for the kingdom he has also basically leapt over Hamlet's own right to run things because he thinks Hamlet would be a dreadful mess. I don't think that Hamlet shows a lot of evidence of leadership skills and we might need people like Claudius sometimes."

No kidding. I definitely would not want Hamlet to run a household, let alone a kingdom. In Branagh's witty black-and-white film about a Hamlet production (with Michael Maloney in the lead), In the Bleak Midwinter, you get a scene where the actress playing Ophelia decides to slap Hamlet in the "get thee to a nunnery scene", and I always thought that would have done him a world of good. Btw, while I've got opinions on various screen Hamlets and Hamlets (least favourite: Mel Gibson - Zeffirelli should have stuck with the Italian plays; the Olivier one has aged really badly, but at least doesn't have Mel Gibson; I do love the Branagh film down to each cameo, but K.B. himself impressed me more in other roles than as Hamlet; which leaves In the Bleak Midwinter, which isn't strictly speaking a film version of Hamlet but a film about a bunch of out of luck actors staging a production of Hamlet, and yet their Hamlet is my favourite. And not just because of the slap, I swear! Stage-wise, sadly, I wasn't very lucky; I've never seen a production that impressed me much. Which means all the more anticipation for this one!