Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
Hamlet
The Royal ShakespeareTheatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
3/5
SET in some Caribbean state where voodoo mixes easily with modern military dictatorship, Simon Goodwin’s production of Hamlet is set far from the gloom of Denmark’s Elsinore.
Moving at a rate of knots, this trimmed-down version of Shakespeare’s longest and arguably darkest play runs for just over three hours and is full of colour and percussive music.
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth



