Hamlet

Published Tuesday 2 October 2007 at 12:45 by Richard Edmonds

Perhaps this is the only way to do Shakespeare for today’s “kidz” many of whom are knowing in a way scarcely conceivable to people of my generation.

Thus Messrs Chenery and Gimblet have produced a version of one of the most significant plays of all time, that somehow gets the story across to its young audience with a mixture of violence, knock-about comedy and an expulsion of anything remotely connected to classroom stuffiness - an examination of what Shakespeare was getting at can come later in life for the children who manage to see this curiously attractive production.

Mourning is about separation, it is about recognising that people are dead and leaving them buried and starting afresh, however painful that may be. Hamlet cannot do that, he has to contend with overbearing ghosts who demand revenge.

To make this comprehensible to a young audience is not easy. Here, it was done with narrative additions by all members of the company, who adapted the text into simplistic prose and laid it before an interested young audience.

At intervals a company song gave a novel twist to the show. Hamlet sang “To Be A Man”, and the “Mousetrap” number came in for a rousing conclusion to the play within a play. It was cod Lloyd Webber for the most part with a Flanagan and Allen strollalong number for the grave diggers and, at times, it was mildly cringe-making.

I wondered what textual balancing act awaited To Be Or Not To Be, but Paul Parris’ extremely likeable Hamlet got away with most of the Shakespearean bits and the authors paraphrased the rest.

A choice moment was Mr Parris’ line in the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern number, “My chums from Wittenberg Uni, good old R and G.”

But if you are ten or thereabouts, theatre such as this is a great way of spending a wet Monday out of the classroom, and when Hamlet put the boot into Laertes during the fencing bit, a hundred little heads shot up abruptly, and a hundred little mouths suddenly stopped chewing for a moment as sweeties were abandoned in favour of poisoned foils, dying queens and wicked kings called Claudius (the superb Jason Lee Scott).

Certainly, if Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the talk of the playground tomorrow, the producers will have done their job well and for that we must thank them.