Friday 9 October 2015

Theatre 2015: Review Thirty-Two

Hamlet, The Barbican, London. September 2015.


I'm late getting this review up, uni has restarted and I had a short break away but even without these reasons I'd have found it hard to review this play.

Rebecca and I were hoping that with much better seats we'd love the play more. And indeed this time we were sat at the front of the circle and on the opposite side of the auditorium so in theory all should have been well...

While we could now see all of the balcony scenes, and they were worth seeing, we lost the wonderful depth and wonder of the stage and while not a lot of lines were given in this area the 'wow factor' was well and truly lost.

Once more we found that the actors weren't engaging/making eye contact with the auditorium and all three of us decided that it was a bit like watching the play on the television rather than live. Act One is also far too long!

I feel sorry for the third of our trio, she doesn't join us as often in our theatre trips and last year we dragged her along to the grim Richard III and this summer it was Hamlet... I think we all agreed that Cumberbatch was worth seeing but the rest of the cast were insipid still. Oh well perhaps I wasn't being overly grumpy in August, perhaps this really is a duff production!

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