Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Paapa Essiedu is a dazzling, all-encompassing prince: RSC’s Hamlet reviewed

Plus: a triumphant Chekhov by Zoom

Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in Royal Shakespeare Company's 2016 production. Image credit: Manuel Harlan / RSC

The Beeb has released Simon Godwin’s Hamlet staged by the RSC in 2016. The director makes one major change and leaves it at that. Elsinore is transposed to a present-day African republic where members of the ruling clan are jockeying for power after the dictator’s death. This chimes with our understanding of geopolitics and lends simplicity and coherence to everything else. African flavours dominate the costumes, the furnishings and the music. The casting makes sense too. Most of the company are black and the characters are played by actors of the right sex. It’s rare to see Shakespeare’s gender choices followed faithfully.

The superstitious element is strongly emphasised. The Ghost’s second appearance on the battlements (often omitted) is included here as he commands Hamlet, Marcellus and Horatio to swear an oath of silence. The characters cut their palms and share their blood in a gruesome rite of fraternity.

Paapa Essiedu is a dazzling, all-encompassing prince. A great Hamlet

Cyril Nri plays Polonius for comedy as a chuntering buffoon rather than as a serious power broker. He even gets a laugh from his death when the banner behind which he’s hiding collapses on him like a paint spillage. Natalie Simpson adds a welcome layer of spikiness to Ophelia’s habitual air of wounded confusion. Marcus Griffiths is a fine Laertes with a commando’s swagger. When his rebels storm the palace, he drops in from a rope, SAS-style.

Paapa Essiedu is a dazzling, all-encompassing prince. Sulking furiously in Act One he spits out his words at Claudius. When he feigns madness, he wears a paint-spattered blazer like an artist taking a break from frenzied experiments in the studio. He can switch his mood instantly, without effort or calculation, from tragic loneliness, to bitter anger, to larky chitchat, to savage wit. At times he turns off the performance entirely and stands on stage, a plain, unhappy man, with nothing to keep him going but his stillness and his mysterious, charming energy.

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