That was a change for Tennant…… (12)

The mother/son scene always gets to me too.

My object all sublime...

It certainly beat watching Eastenders

The first rule of Brat Club, we don't talk about Brat Club...

If only it had been Hamlet without the prince! Tennant seemed totally unable to adjust his performance for the camera, with every expression and gesture big enough to be seen at the back of the stalls, even when it was being shot in close up. (It's pretty much what he warns the players against doing!) It was particularly noticeable in his scene with Penny Downie.

'Twosies beats onesies, but nothing beats three...'

Edited 21 Apr 11, 8:17 AM by fen_fatale

Hmm yes the staring eyes need watching but it's a funny genre, the filmed play on television. I was a bit uncomfortable with the grave scene suddenly being on location with everything else on stage. Especially as it is about the most stagey scene in the whole play what with chatting to the skull of your long lost friend that just happens to be thrown up by the grave digger.

But it is Tennant's way with the words that is so brilliant. The big monologues he just makes slot seamlessly into the moment. Quite extraordinary.

And I suppose you could say his theatrical gestures are Hamlet's adolescentish, self-obsessed, narcissistic immaturity. Hamlet can be a bit of a drama queen which only underscores the real tragedy of his position, a bit like a contemporary celebrity-type whose life is nevertheless tragic.

My object all sublime...

Not 'a'lot 'a' people know that

Sadly I missed this today, but am hoping for the DVD. I saw the play at Stratford and it was amazing. There's a lot of humour in 'Hamlet' and this production really made the most of it. Tennant was good (wide staring eyes and all - works well on stage), as was the rest of the cast with the exception of Patrick Stewart, oddly. I think it's because he has so much gravitas that a sneaky character like Claudius seems a bad fit for him. The chap playing Polonius was brilliant, perfect comic timing.

One day someone will stage 'Hamlet' as a proper comedy, complete with farcical ending. I've always read the final scene as hilarious.

"Me? I'm all about the hugs.
And cruelty. Hugs and cruelty basically."

I couldn't see that that the out-of-proportion gestures and expressions necessarily fit, line-by-line so to speak, with those adolescent aspects of Hamlet's character. I think also that 'to be...' and the other soliloquies aren't as hard to get right as the intense scenes with Claudius, the court, Ophelia, and above all with Gertrude.

The RSC used to have a very bad habit of bringing in famous screen 'names' to bulk up the box office - no-one who saw it will ever forget (alas) Jenny Agutter playing Regan in Lear. In this production it seems they were at it again; Tennant I thought was shown up by a very solid cast of stage actors, including the best Polonius I've ever seen.

I agree though about the jarring effect of shooting the graveyard scene in the real world, and also of the ice scene, where a stubbornly persistent and strange camera angle (intended, presumably, to represent the POV from the helicopter whose engine noise filled the soundtrack) was very out of place. And having dragged us out onto the ice and thus placed some emphasis on the wider political picture, reminding us that what's at risk is not only Hamlet's life but the whole future of Denmark and its people, it seemed perverse to shorten the final act of the play, so that it concludes with Hamlet's death rather than with the arrival of young Fortinbras.

'Twosies beats onesies, but nothing beats three...'

Yes I think you are right. Hamlet is such a mixture of real mature wisdom (the way he admonishes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for imagining they understand him well enough to play him like a pipe I particularly like, it is so %100 contemporary) and anguished adolescent. Tennant carries his gestures into areas of deep feeling where they don't really fit because Hamlet is there essentially feeling for all mankind and forever, not experiencing adolescent anguish exclusive to his own personal dilemma.

That camera angle with the troops was seriously weird. I couldn't let go of the idea that the troops were doing that pantomime trick of running round to the back of the queue as soon as they were out of shot so that they could go past again and give you fifty soldiers for the price of ten.

And yes Polonius was also %100 real and believable, no hamming up as must be so tempting. Exquisite.

Ophelia seemed brilliant too, but I can never understand what she is doing in the play or why she goes mad. She goes bonkers before Polonius is stabbed (er shot) doesn't she? Peculiar.

I think the adolescent/adult divide in Hamlet is most apparent in the bedroom scene with his mother. It is both the desperate anxiety of the child who would be adult and the murderous rage of the adult male. We never really got either.

I do like your comments Rod, you seem to know what you are talking about.

My object all sublime...