Though I’ve not read the entire canon yet or seen as many of the plays onstage as I’d wish, I consider myself to be a Shakespeare enthusiast. It’s a passion that has been with me since my school days: I was “that girl” in English class: the one who was entranced by the language and it’s rhythms when all my classmates were baffled or pleaded boredom,  who enjoyed getting under the skins of these characters and discovering what makes them tick, and who delighted in any and every opportunity I could get to read them aloud. By the time I got to university, my love for the Bard’s works was truly cemented, and I took every class on both the comedies and tragedies I could get my hands on; and with my passion and a generous helping of luck, I gained some of the best grades in my academic career with my work on his plays; and even though my student days are behind me now, I still to this day return to my favourites from time to time when I read for pleasure.

If you were to ask me what my favourite Shakespeare plays are, the two that’ll always be there are Coriolanus and Hamlet. I have lots of great memories and experiences tied into both of these plays in various mediums, but at the core what fascinates me about both of them is that they explore juxtapositions: life and death, action and inaction, public and private, innocence and corruption (to name but a few) but they do so with the family as a backdrop which adds so much to the dynamics at play that fascinates me given all those added complexities and nuances around those relationships.

Hamlet currently holds the record for the Shakespeare play I’ve seen most: my first in 2015 at the Barbican with Benedict Cumberbatch, then a thrilling, gritty, almost film noir-type spin from my beloved home theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, in 2022, and more recently, I ticked off a major theatre bucket list entry by seeing my first production at the Royal Shakespeare Company…

On paper, this production and I were onto a good thing from the beginning: there were familiar faces in the cast and creative teams whose work I follow and enjoy, a director who again if you were to ask who my favourite theatre director is, his name would be up there, and ultimately just for the pure joy I often take in seeing new visions of Shakespeare’s worlds and words. As such, you would be right to suggest that it was a forgone conclusion that I loved this take, but even I wasn’t expecting to get as much as I did from it: it’s a thrilling, pacy adaptation that deftly walks that fine line between light and shade, allowing the audience to infer just as much as they are shown and told.

A far cry from the traditional fortified castle, Elsinore is now a ship, and the action takes place on a single night in April 1912. Purists and history buffs will make of that what they will, but for me that decision was really striking as it added an urgency and energy to proceedings I hadn’t encountered or even associated with this play before: there’s projections of storm grey seas, a clock that appears between scenes, each edging closer to that fateful hour, and of course, the ship starts to sink. In that, Es Devlin proves once again why she is one of my favourite designers: the deck becomes a character in itself as it moves and jolts towards ever steeper angles, the scene changes and movement becoming more frantic as we see the ensemble in life jackets as the upper classes dance, and so on. It’s a precarious and bold concept, but the whole effect quite took my breath away, especially when complemented by Jack Knowle’s lighting (haunting for it’s scarcity), video design from Akhila Krishnan that takes us from above deck to the engine rooms and beyond, and Adam Cork’s sound design and compositions.  Costume design from Evie Gurney also keeps us firmly rooted in the period and maintaining the class distinctions, but what struck me throughout this and indeed the other design choices is the sparing use of colour; it’s unsettling and deliciously atmospheric.

You’ll remember that I mentioned before the director here is fast becoming my favourite, a pattern that has continued here with Hamlet, and that is Rupert Goold. In what is my fourth experience of his work (the others being The Hunt, Patriots and Cold War), I once again marvelled at his ability to navigate tension, nuance and find the wit in places you don’t expect to see it, especially with his vision of Hamlet having the setting and context it does. Sure, he and dramaturgist Rebecca Latham cut and compress the text in interest of time, the nautical language replaces the military and you have to suspend your disbelief when it comes to certain plot points (Laertes couldn’t have made it back to France, nor Hamlet to England in the space of mere hours, for example), but never did I find the choices made detracting from my enjoyment of the piece, in fact I appreciated that Goold’s vision here allows for a great sense of faith in the audience and allows us to draw our own conclusions, and potentially take different things from these characters, their relationships and the play as a whole than you may have done before.

I know that’s true in my case, as here we have a cast that truly helped elevate an already intriguing premise and design to new heights and was extraordinary across the board. I felt I knew these characters quite well coming into this production, and yet when I left, I was delighted to have had them help me find new facets to explore.

Luke Thallon joins my trio of Hamlets, and I say this now with complete conviction and sincerity: whoever comes after has almighty boots to fill as I thought he was utterly extraordinary. Having seen him in Patriots and Cold War, I knew already that I was charmed by his charisma and presence, and excited to see where he’d take Hamlet, and he certainly didn’t disappoint me. There’s a sense of energy imbued in him throughout, even before we come to any thoughts of revenge or questions of his “madness”; for starters there’s a more naturalistic quality to the way he approaches how Hamlet expresses himself – his speeches are littered with considered pauses and the occasional filler “um”  that give the impression that sometimes his mind works too fast for him even to get a full handle on his thoughts and feelings, and yet we are fully aware that he has the measure of everyone around him, and how they expect him to react. That’s a dynamic and take on the role I haven’t come across before, and it was glorious being kept on one’s toes like that; never quite knowing which Hamlet you’ll see! His fits of rage, be they expressed in roars of frustration or physical tics when he’s alone are just as impactful as his playfulness, sarcasm and indeed his stillness and emotion, and it’s my immense privilege to have seen Luke tackle such a weighty role with such vibrancy, ease and aplomb; you can sense he throws everything he has to give at it and I delight in a production that offers its cast space, permission and confidence to have that level of conviction in themselves and the choices they make.

There’s moments where Luke’s Hamlet pushes at the fourth wall, a knowing glance out to the audience, an inflection placed just so at the end of a question that is almost inviting us to react and respond as he would often to us, and that was utterly delightful to me as an audience member; I was drawn in immediately and so reluctant to let go by show end, and that’s a remarkable quality of his that I hope he brings to more Shakespeare should he choose to pursue them!

Jared Harris  follows in the footsteps of Ciaran Hinds and Finbar Lynch as my third Claudius. Knowing Jared only from my minimal exposure to his screen work, I took immense joy in simply seeing him work in person in a play I’ve always loved. His Claudius was a little more difficult for me to get the measure of, and that’s because I felt Jared, carefully and deliberately leans into the idea that he’s wrestling more with his guilt over his actions more than previous iterations. To be faced with those flashes of charm and sensitivity only makes those moments where we see his true nature all the more powerful and chilling; the scene where he confronts Hamlet over the whereabouts of Polonius’s body and attempts to get him to talk by forcing him headfirst into a bucket of water shall live long in my memory, because I just couldn’t shake the newfound sense of camaraderie that this production gave me about Claudius and Polonius’s relationship. Jared is, of course, no stranger to Shakespeare (or indeed Hamlet having also played the title role in 2001), and so there’s an ease, familiarity, and presence he has with and gives to the language that is a complete joy to watch, and I’m so grateful he was willing to take on such a bold, inventive, fresh production.

Nancy Carroll also took my appreciation of Queen Gertrude to unexpected places in this version; she first came into my theatregoing world back in 2019 in Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of The Deep Blue Sea, another of my favourite plays, and I was so captivated by her there that much like Luke I was so excited to see what she’d bring to a Shakespeare. Arguably, Gertrude as a character is underwritten and therein underused, but Nancy proved that it’s quality over quantity that mattered here as she eked out every second of nuance in that role: I’m used to being very fixed in my reaction to the character in that she sort of fades into the background for me, but Nancy ensured she left a lasting impression because her Gertrude was far more interesting than I’ve seen before. I got this tremendous sense of her being so entirely besotted by Claudius that she cannot even think he’d commit her husband’s murder – the slap she gives Hamlet at the close of the “play within a play” and their subsequent confrontation in her closet had me utterly riveted, because they toyed with the traditional dynamic that this play usually gives to Hamlet and his mother. The love is still there, but there was a coldness and a genuine belief and fear in her son’s madness that I revelled in. To watch Luke and Nancy play those shifting dynamics and emotions was a highlight of my entire afternoon.

Speaking of highlights of the whole afternoon, I’d be remiss not to mention Anton Lesser, who was utterly mesmerising in his dual turns as the Ghost and First Player, and favourite of mine Elliot Levey as Polonius. For as long as I’ve been a fan of his and in recent years having the pleasure of his company at various stage doors after a matinee, he and I joke around that I’ve only seen him in quite heavy, intense, bleak pieces of theatre. I suppose it’s something of a stretch to say Hamlet breaks our “tradition”, but he brought such unexpected wit, warmth and fun to his portrayal of Polonius that gave me a connection to the character that I haven’t felt as strongly before, mainly because this production leans more into his role as a father to Laertes and Ophelia rather instead of his role of chief counsellor, and it meant a smile or a laugh was never far away for the whole time he was onstage, and thinking about it, was probably the first time I grieved his demise with any sincerity!

The change in Polonius also allowed me to find more of that connection with Laertes and Ophelia too, given new fire and sweetness by Lewis Shephard and Nia Towle, both in their RSC debuts. Kel Matsena was also a pleasure as a seemingly more reserved, shy and vulnerable Horatio.

For all the drama I had getting there, I wouldn’t have missed this production for the world as my introduction to the venue – it’s thrown down the gauntlet for  my show of the year, and I’m only five in!

Hamlet runs at the Royal Shakespeare Company until 29^th March