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Doctor Who in Elsinore

Patrick Carnegy

Wednesday, 13th August 2008

Hamlet
Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Star casting at Stratford runs the risk of propelling a show into an orbit hard to track or make sense of. Such is inevitably the case with the casting of David Tennant as Hamlet. Director Gregory Doran apparently got the idea from the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? In quest of his bloodline, Tennant was visiting a church in Northern Ireland and casually picked up a skull from an excavation. ‘I saw your audition for Hamlet,’ ran Doran’s text message. Doubtless he’d also not forgotten that the play’s very first line just happens to be ‘Who’s there?’ — and the thing was settled.

In his pre-fame days Tennant had done superlative work with the RSC (as Romeo, Antipholus of Syracuse, and Jack Absolute in The Rivals among other roles), so this wasn’t quite as mad an impulse as it might sound. The end of the triumphant latest series of Doctor Who would have been in sight. Hamlet would have been a liberational challenge to an actor chafing at too long an imprisonment in the 1950s police phone box. For the RSC there would be publicity to die for, with fans fighting for tickets at more or less any price.

There’s no way that the expectations surrounding such a show could be fulfilled. Who knows what Tennant’s telly fans will make of his translation to Elsinore, or what mainline Shakespearean addicts will make of him. We can at least be clear that his Hamlet is as wild-eyed, jaw-droppingly wayward and histrionically orbital as his Doctor — presumably his caperings in that role would also have been another part of his ‘audition’? But whatever happened to the consummate skills of the actor who once only had to raise an eyebrow or twitch a corner of his mouth to make you smile or convulse you with laughter?

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Lillian

August 18th, 2008 6:08pm

Hmmm... The whole point is that he trying to be mad, and that he has matured when he returns from his exile. I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr Tennant before, but found his performance quite captivating. To dismiss it as 'The Doctor on holiday' is really not seeing the point, I feel, and, in my view of the performance, quite wrong. Ah well... each to their own. I'm sure that he can content himself with all the other glowing reviews he has recieved.

Food for thought

Simon Hoggart

My favourite programme last week was France on a Plate (BBC4, Sunday) in which Dr Andrew Hussey investigated the link between gastronomy and la gloire; French glory and destiny.