Tickets
2nd December – Christ’s New Court Theatre, Cambridge
5th December – Hiberniaschool, Antwerp
6th December – De Koelisse, Leuven
8th December – BrechtBauTheater, Tübingen
9th December – University of Konstanz, Konstanz
13th December – Gymnasium Lerbermatt, Bern
16th December – The Courtyard Theatre, London
17-21st January – ADC Theatre, Cambridge
If you wish to buy tickets for a performance in Europe, please contact our Tour Manager, William Ashton.
Hamlet is a play deeply rooted in the complex psychology of it’s central characters. We are presented with ghosts, revenge and betrayal all whilst we watch the young prince grapple with reality. Frank McGuinness wrote that ‘Hamlet is a play of lost innocence, and the most pronounced, perhaps, is the audience’s. I think that this captures part of the play’s magic. When the audience begins they are immersed in their own lives and presented with a man who is consumed by ghosts and possible insanity. When they leave they have lost certainty over who is good and over who is sane and have to grapple with the uncertainty and unfinishedness that the play pushed onto them. This highlights the exciting psychological side to the play both in terms of what happens in and around Hamlet’s mind, and in terms of what this means for the audience.
As Hamlet and his mental state drive the play, his identity and how this affects his relationship with others is for me one of the play’s most crucial elements. Our interpretation of Hamlet will invite the audience into the psyche of the unstable Prince. We want the audience to enter immersed in their own lives and leave the play unable to distinguish the tragic events from the creations of his mind. As Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’ veers towards a more genuine madness, we want to use devised moments between actors to show action that feels almost like a trick of the light, the audience unsure if Hamlet’s mind is deceiving them all.
We’d like the play to hold the memory of its original setting whilst being outside of a specific time or location. With costumes and behaviour that cannot be tied to a particular era, we want the character’s presentation to fall somewhere between their reality and Hamlet’s impression of them. This will allow further ambiguity to cast over the events the audience sees unfolding and whether Hamlet is able to trust his mind. This also places an emphasis on the relationships between the characters, which are affected by age and gender in ways still highly relevant to modern audiences. This is why our Hamlet is young and we have aimed to explore a fresh understanding of his masculinity and the weighted gender dynamics between the characters in the show from an unconventional angle.
The show’s design aims to create an otherworldly feel that does not shy away from the play’s darkness. The design is purposely simple with the intention of cultivating an unstable and haunting mood as opposed to locating particular moments of the play.
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, and for good reason. It has been an absolute privilege to have the opportunity to work with such an unbelievably talented cast and crew. I hope that others can enjoy and take something away from what we’ve all created.