Hamlet
Even as literate adults, we need to learn how to read
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst shows us the rewards of reading slowly and attentively – and making connections between seemingly disparate things
Stephen Fry is the perfect Lady Bracknell
Hamlet at the National opens like a John Lewis Christmas advert. Elegant celebrations are in progress. The stage is full…
Brilliant rewrite of Shakey: Hamlet, at Buxton Opera House, reviewed
‘There is good music, bad music, and music by Ambroise Thomas,’ said Emmanuel Chabrier, but then, Chabrier said a lot…
Why 4,000 pages of T.S. Eliot’s literary criticism is not enough
Faber’s text-only, strictly chronological four-volume edition of the prose is fatally purist – though admittedly cheaper than the eight-volume Johns Hopkins version
Fortitude, emotional intelligence and wit – the defining qualities of Simon Russell Beale
The Shakespearean actor has taken on 18 of the great roles since his first gig at the RSC in 1985 and recalls them with insight, sensitivity and a sharp passion for language
Eddie Izzard’s one-man Hamlet deserves top marks
Every Hamlet is a failure. It always feels that way because playgoers tend to compare what they’re seeing with a…
Weird and wonderful
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
Send in the clowns
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per…
Clown prince
Never Not Once has a cold and forbidding title but it starts as an amusing tale set in an LA…
Simply Shakespeare
Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…
Theatrical opium
Ian McKellen in his early eighties plays the Dane in his mid-twenties. A production with such a strange innovation should…
Insects of the hour
Did you go to college? If so, then it is overwhelmingly likely that you have been the recipient of a…
No one but Michelle Terry would have hired Michelle Terry to play Hamlet
Regime change at the Globe. The new boss, Michelle Terry, wants a 50/50 ratio of males to females in each…
Keeping it in the family
A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…
Shakespeare’s crowning glory
In the 18th century, as Shakespeare began to take on classic status, editors began to notice differences between the texts…
A mirror to the world
The best new books celebrating Shakespeare’s centenary are full of enthusiasm and insight — but none plucks out the heart of his mystery, says Daniel Swift
All the world’s a stage
James Woodall talks to the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has brought a swathe of Shakespeare’s history plays to the stage in Dutch (four hours of it)
Shakespeare400
The feeding frenzy over the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death has reached its peak. Recently we’ve had Shakespeare’s complete…
Sound and fury
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Intolerable cruelty
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Telling tales
Medea says ‘hiiiiiiii’ on the first page of Mallory Ortberg’s hilarious book, which puts smartphones in the hands of literary…
Nice work
You can’t play the part of Hamlet, only parts of Hamlet. And the bits Benedict Cumberbatch offers us are of…
Diary
I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…
Walk on the wild side
After a walk in Richmond Park beset by rush-hour traffic, the Heathrow flight path and a strange swarm of flying…
