ScotsGay Magazine

****

Two Hamlets plus three asorted Danes and others. Five actors from Drama Centre London performed a very different Hamlet - it really kept the audience on the edge of our seats and engrossed. The scenes between the Hamlets and Ophelia and the Hamlets and Gertrude were played with very robust physicality and with intensity. To direct Hamlet and play both Claudius and Gertrude in your production is quite a feat, but Hannah Kaye did this convincingly here. Having two Hamlets (Benjamin Askew and Robert Donnelly) perhaps helped share the weight of the project - but can the reason have been so simple? Hamlet as narcissist? Not signalled. Hamlet as schizophrenic? Not signalled. The programme poem from Catullus suggests brotherly love and bonding. I have to admit that two handsome Hamlets repeatedly entwined made me think of some kind of bisexual protagonist - but it probably wasn't that, either. But there's no need to question when a production as spellbinding as this is available. Just absorb and relish the experience. When I was there myself and another company made up half the audience - which is shameful! This production deserves far more attention.

Tony Challis

Back to Fringe Review Index