by It’s a worldwide platform for Queen Camilla, who attended a star-studded event at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on Tuesday night as part of the 400th– celebration of the anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Her Majesty had originally intended to enjoy this trip on Valentine’s Day with the King; instead, luminaries such as Dame Judi Dench wished him a speedy recovery. Robert Lindsay dedicated his performance of Cole Porter’s Brush Up Your Shakespeare to the royal couple, saying it was the “perfect day to celebrate the King’s love of Shakespeare, and indeed to celebrate the love between the King and the Queen.” “
It would be a shame for the King to lose this tribute to the Bard. In 2016, then-Prince Charles happily embraced acting royalty, including Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, as he performed Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” solemn performance during the RSC’s Shakespeare Live gala. However, the Queen ably proved that the show must go on, and was appropriately photographed with some of our most famous Hamlets, such as Lindsay, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Courteney, Samuel West and Alex Jennings.
Should King William recreate that image during his own reign, who could be a gentle prince? Here are the 10 Hamlets most likely to join his court in the future.
Andrew Scott
The Irish actor was, rightly, nominated for an Olivier for his stirring portrayal of the Prince of Denmark in Robert Icke’s slick modern dress stage at the Almeida Theater in 2017. Icke gave us a paranoid surveillance – state of Elsinore (espionage the king’s ghost on CCTV), overflowing with political power brokers who wouldn’t be out of place in Succession.
But the high concept is not so much in the memory as Scott’s vulnerable performance. You expected the intelligence and mercurial switches from his recent turn as Moriarty, but not the full-on desperate sadness. This was a Hamlet of great balance of head and heart.
Benedict Cumberbatch
From Moriarty to Sherlock – and, thanks to Cumberbatch’s popularity as the genius detective, tickets to his Hamlet at the Barbican in 2015 sold out in record time. Opinion was divided between Lyndsey Turner’s moody production, thanks to the twisting and turning of the text and busy design that tended to stage the actors.
But Cumberbatch emerged victorious. He rewarded many of his eager followers (many new to Shakespeare) by pouring out crystal-clear verses in a similar stream of consciousness. He brought some of that Sherlockian charisma and sardonic ruthlessness to the part, adding his pain to the violence in the play’s climactic scenes.
Rory Kinnear
The National Theatre’s Artistic Director at the time, Nicholas Hytner, directed Kinnear in his 2010 production in Olivier’s cavernous space. Hytner predates Icke by presenting the play as a police state, one in which Kinnear’s dominant Hamlet is first repressed and eventually incited to pure rebellion.
That interesting framing gave a lot of room for Decision to manoeuvre, and built a strong arc for his Hamlet as it should be – from a depressed loner to a blinkered Nihilist poisoned and radicalized by a totalitarian regime. Memorably, he delivered “To be or not to be” between puffs of world-weary cigarettes.
David Tennant
In 2008 Tennant swapped the TARDIS for Stratford, starring in the RSC production of Gregory Doran alongside fellow sci-fi icon Patrick Stewart as Claudius. Was the resulting show out of this world? Many thought so, praising Doran’s thoughtful, detailed and astute reading of the play’s psychology.
Central to that was Tennant’s relentless prince, physically dynamic (all the paths the Doctor ran paid off) as well as mentally agile, and one of the funniest Hamlets on this list. That sharp humor and truly wild “antic spirit” kept the audience guessing during a fun performance.
Ben Whishaw
We are so used to Hamlet being played by established actors in their thirties or older (Ian McKellen even managed it at 82) that it was a shock when 23-year-old Trevor Nunn Whishaw age – then out of RADA. – in his Old Vic production in 2004. But his gamble was amply rewarded.
Skinny and frail, a sulky youth whose innocence has been destroyed by the death of his father and the subsequent disintegration of his family, Whishaw’s raw youthful portrayal of the part made us see Hamlet anew – not as a royal or political schemer, but as a boy lost. Many could relate.
Pope Essiedu
Surprisingly, Essiedu (notably young at 25) became the first black Hamlet in RSC history when he took on the title role in Simon Godwin’s production in 2016. Godwin moved the action to a modern-day African nation, ruled by a military dictator; the drums punctuated the febrile drama.
Essiedu made his graffiti artist Hamlet – who expressed his sense of alienation through huge canvases, like Jean-Michel Basquiat – a charming, charming, idealistic man who is forced to bear this terrible responsibility. Hardens revenge and then it breaks. It was an instant star-making performance.
Jude law
We caught Hollywood leading man Jude Law’s romantic hero version of Hamlet at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012. It was Michael Grandage who lured him back to the stage for this stylish but grim (as in, you couldn’t to see) take on the play, ai imprison its actors.
However, the audience was impressed with Law’s intense reading. He made Hamlet bitterly ashamed of the moral decay in his rotten kingdom, and, like the most ardent anti-corruption tsars, saw it as his personal crusade to set things right – but that aim was tragically undermined by his self-destructive. impulses.
Maxine Peake
What a piece of work man! And yet they are not the only ones who made their mark with this titanic role. Sarah Siddons was probably the first woman to play Hamlet in 1775; most recently, the mighty Peake starred in Sarah Frankcom’s Manchester Royal Exchange production in 2014. With close-cropped hair and a blue suit, she had a vaguely androgynous quality, but the performance was very specific.
Wonderful and attentive, this Hamlet did not miss a trick. As the offenses against Elsinore increased, so did Peake’s fiery anger and erratic emotional outbursts. She also gave Errol Flynn a run for his money with her sword swing.
Cush Jumbo game
Another great cross-cast piece saw rising star Jumbo the sweet prince at the Young Vic in 2021. Not everyone loved Greg Hersov’s experimental but sickly production, which featured giant mirrored pillars in the cast.
However, Jumbo’s clearly dangerous street-smart Hamlet – made more physical thanks to the baggy menswear – was a revelation. The play’s reflection on toxic masculinity has never been so triumphant, with Hamlet burning Ophelia and wallowing in his own narcissism. That’s a courageous expression, not afraid to go to dark and ugly places.
Tom Hiddleston
The most exclusive Hamlet on this list, only a few members of the audience were lucky enough to see Hiddleston take on the role. He chose to donate it to his alma mater, RADA, in a short fundraising run in 2017 directed by Kenneth Branagh – who previously cast Hiddleston in his Thor film.
Perhaps inspired by that trickster Loki, Hamlet Hiddleston was a wry beggar, but he also kept nobility; his white-hot rage arose from a loss of status as well as the loss of a parent. Maybe we can convince this famous Shakespearean to give us a public encoding so that more people can understand the method in his madness.
