Directed by Sean Mathias

Produced by Bill Kenwright, David Gilbery and Naomi George

UK/2023/117mins

Hamlet will be available on DVD, Blu-ray & Digital Download from 8th April

Theatre sustained, perhaps, the worst damage of the art and entertainment mediums throughout the sustained days of COVID lockdowns. Production tours were cut short, their rehearsal spaces restricted, funding decimated, and their physical venues took longer to re-open. It was (and is) in death throws until an endless stream of digital productions emerged – largely screened variations of a production: a camera pointed at a stage. It was welcome, yet hurtful. The opportunity to see theatre, sometimes live theatre, again was heartwarming, though the argument of just how “theatrical” it was without the audience persists. One show which steadily embraced audiences again in July 2021 was Sean Mathias’ age-blind Hamlet, with Sir Ian McKellen taking the Prince’s leading role. 

The real difference with this new cinematic re-imaging is that where we had months of theatrical productions presenting the theatrical through a cinematic medium – Mathias’ ‘restaging’ of their 2021 incarnation is now a piece of cinema, being told through the space of the stage. The method in filmmaking is to scour the nooks and cracks of the Theatre Royal Windsor: box office, foyer, dressing rooms, the toilets, and even the barren streets outside the theatre as McKellen, reprising their role, wanders fractured, almost anxious in what is about to unfold.

It’s no secret that the relationship between stage and screen, often viewed as combative contraries, found a suitable use for another in recent years – accelerated through the outbreak of COVID-19. The National Theatre’s Live streaming and recordings of shows were not new notions, but the closure of spaces certainly left the art form in a lurch – and with the world staring at nothing but their four walls and screens – the opportunity to tell stories with multi-camera captures of the shows was taken. But this is something entirely different. 

Neil Oseman’s cinematography is an almost perverse manipulation to re-frame the play in manners theatre can’t always achieve: the secret filming of Claudius by Horatio, of Hamlet’s presence for pivotal scenes from the presence of the theatre box, making this an Elsinore which audiences have never experienced. The creative use of the space throughout the Theatre Royal offers a playful, insightful use of the venue to even the most seasoned of visitors. Mathias places the theatre itself in a starring role, turning the toilet cubicles into a holding cell and the grand foyer as the public domain in which Hamlet mocks Polonius – even more grounded by how every day the setting seems, though the film still captures some remarkably well-orchestrated scenes with colour and effective lighting.

Reprising the role, McKellen’s surprising though successful inflexions continue through to this incarnation, which captures the intimacy and eccentricities (for better or worse) from the stage. Words often remarked for their weight are delivered with an off-the-cuff frankness and instead impart this significance into the play’s lesser-known speeches – though still ripe with value and exploration, even for the most familiar. It’s a strikingly effective and uncanny move from Mathias and McKellen and works resoundingly well with the intensely close-up shots the film largely utilises, tucked away in every possible narrow corner of the theatre.

Physically, the film suffers from the attention to detail and drawn-out sequences where Mathias’ direction does maintain the lengthy moments of the play. It’s aided, only somewhat, with the movement direction and decisions to attempt to infuse additional momentum (McKellen doing a sporting job at pushing themselves into exerting impressive energy). But the smarter choices of movement also extend to the performance nature, which gradually shifts closer to the intensity of cinema’s ability to drive emotions closely – with the bold decision to offer a lens of truth which enables terrifically insightful performances from Jonathan Hyde as a guilt-ridden Claudius who uses the camera as a mirror or sorts – a reflection of his conscience. 

A strong cast is continued with Alis Wyn Davie’s Ophelia, who conducts a tremendous compassionate and growing resistance and insight with a strong presence, one which seems more to be playing to an invisible stage audience than the screen and turns out to be a brilliant enhancer of McKellen’s Hamlet. While Steven Barkoff’s militaristic, blustering Polonius absorbs every ounce of the camera they can, moments away from a wink or a nudge. Though the stand-out role, in moments even more so than McKellen’s headlining one, Emmanuella Cole’s Laertes offers a performance which grasps the rhythmic nature of the poet-bard’s writing: touching and controlled all in one. 

The inescapable nature of Hamlet’s ‘theatricalness’ is constantly under a lens here – as Shakespeare’s most performative piece brings audiences closer than ever thought with Mathia’s film-theatre beasts of two forms that become one. Featuring one of McKellen’s more nuanced and understated performances (with some terrific fluffy jumpers and sublimely elaborate costuming work from Loren Elstein) in a role which seems to latch into a more personal commentary, even acceptance, of age, despite the film (and play’s) ambitions to refute them. It stables the ship of an experimental film and demonstrates the beauty and influence of theatre and film without one overshadowing the other. Playing in cinemas for only one evening, February 27th, Hamlet enables audiences the opportunity to see are still things to discover in heaven and earth, and how the industry can synergise with itself, rather than compete.

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