Hamlet (National Theatre Live, 2015)

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark... and it's definitely Sian Brooke's performance as Ophelia. It just was probably the most tragic thing about the play. Actually, I found most of the performances pretty terrible, I'm beginning to wonder if they asked everyone to play badly so that Benedict Cumberbatch's mediocre Hamlet could shine through as a genius performance by contrast. I think my favourites might have been the gravediggers, who actually managed to make their dialogue funny (something I've never experienced before). There was nothing really interesting or new about the performance or the staging. I enjoyed the part when Hamlet wounds Laertes and everything turns to dramatic slow motion, with weird lighting. It was a bit overblown, but I liked it. Mostly, I thought the production just worked too hard to make the play relatable (Horatio as Hamlet's plaid-wearing hipster friend, Ophelia as a bit of a 'manic pixie dream girl'). As for Benedict Cumberbatch, okay, we all know he's good, but he's not that good. I wouldn't say that he transformed the role or made it his own or anything, but he was very enjoyable to watch and listen to, he is quite magnetic. However, I often feel like he's just acting out the same few stock situations in different permutations in everything he's in. It's a bit annoying to be able to draw exact parallels with certain scenes in Sherlock and know that the production is capitalising on that. I wouldn't say that Cumberbatch brought anything new to the role, nor that the role brought out anything new in him.

Also, I'm having a bit of a Hamlet fixation at the moment, so I'm probably going to be posting a lot of things related to the play for a while.