Hamlet

A GREAT DANE
OK I’ll come clean. I’m not a big fan of Shakespeare and in fact, I’d never before seen Hamlet. So Brighton actor and director George Dillon’s version, at Brighton’s Komedia, was my first meeting with the crazed Dane.
I expected impenetrable prose, but what I got was a rollicking good story, as good as any you’d find in the tabloids. Uncle kills brother, the king. Then he marries king’s wife. Hamlet, the king’s son is pretty upset. In fact, he’s mad. There you have it.
It’s the sort of stuff that Deirdre sorts out every day of the week! But the play’s the thing, as they say in Hamlet. The physical interactions, say between Dillon as Hamlet and his mother, is electrifying stuff, and says more than any soliloquy.
What is normally a four hour epic is cut down to two and a half with some expert slashing of text, which actually allows the less tutored mind to keep track. George got the best-known bit over with at the start by dashing off the To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy. Well, that’s that then, I thought. But there was more. Hamlet is jam-packed with great stuff like that and Dillon does it justice.
Dillon and the seven-strong cast handle some of the Dillonesque strangeness with ease. For instance, Guildenstern is a dog hand-puppet, and even I know that’s stretching things a bit.
Hamlet is indeed ‘far gone’, as Dillon makes very clear as only he can, appearing on stage at one point like a deranged caveman. But there’s method in his madness and Hamlet is a success, largely due to the cast’s understanding of where Dillon is taking it, into new, uncharted territory.
Jonathan Morris, THE ARGUS, 21 March 1995

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in the Kingdom of Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, firstly for murdering the old King Hamlet (Claudius’s brother and Prince Hamlet’s father) and secondly for then succeeding to the throne and marrying Gertrude (King Hamlet’s widow and mother of Prince Hamlet). The play vividly portrays real and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

Hamlet

Early life

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.^[7]He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George’s Day.^[8] This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar’s mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616.^[9] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.^[10]

Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King’s New School in Stratford,^[11] a free school chartered in 1553,^[12] about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England,^[13] and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics.

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway’s neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage.^[14] The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times,^[15] and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.^[16] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.^[17] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.^[18]

After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare’s “lost years”.^[19] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him.^[20] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.^[21] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.^[22] Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain “William Shakeshafte” in his will.^[23] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.^[24]

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway’s neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage.^[14] The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times,^[15] and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.^[16] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.^[17] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.^[18]

After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare’s “lost years”.^[19] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him.^[20] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.^[21] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.^[22] Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain “William Shakeshafte” in his will.^[23] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.