Hamlet *** TNT (starring Jude Law)
Problems seem to have dogged recent productions of Hamlet. Illness meant that David Tennant barely appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s transfer to London last year, and now, owing to Kenneth Branagh’s clashing commitments, Michael Grandage has replaced him as director of the final play in the Donmar West End’s high profile, sell-out season.
It proves a sombre, monochrome affair, with only a few splashes of colour and shafts of daylight breaking the gloomy claustrophobia of a prison-like Elsinore castle. But the star remains – and Jude Law, dangerously moody in grey, holds the stage as the grief stricken, vengeful Danish prince whose mother’s swift remarriage to her murderous brother-in-law has left him teetering on the verge of breakdown.
Whether huddled against falling snow to deliver the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, or sussing out the motives of his recently returned student friends, his performance – like the production – is swift and lucid. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s fragile Ophelia comes into her own in the mad scene, singing with a sweet desolation as she distributes her herbs, but elsewhere this is a rather low-key affair. Her prattling father Polonius (the lines have been cut, so robbing him of the verbosity which so irritates the court and usually adds humour to the tragedy) is, here, a cold fish, barely missed when Hamlet skewers him as he eavesdrops on Penelope Wilton’s restrained Gertrude.
So this is very much Law’s night and (though the production’s dull modern dress suggests that the sumptuously costumed Madame de Sade which preceded it swallowed up most of the costume budget) he proves that he’s more than capable of delivering in black and white on stage as well as in full Technicolor on screen.
Wyndham's, Charing Cross Road WC2H 0DA Phone: - 0844 482 5120 (donmarwestend.com/hamlet/) Until 22nd August (£10-£32.50}
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