Hamlet (2009 RSC TV production)

Kenneth Branagh is officially no longer my favourite Hamlet. I cannot believe how amazing David Tennant's performance is, the energy he injected into it completely transformed the role. I really think the man must be a minor god of some sort, he actually made me like a history play with his performance as Richard II, and he was also great in Much Ado About Nothing. In this production, he uses his restless, madcap energy to play up the 'antic disposition' of the character, constantly testing where sincerity ends and merriment begins. Not only is Tennant brilliant, the entire production is amazing. Patrick Stewart as both Claudius and Hamlet Sr. is wonderful, and Peter de Jersey is probably also my favourite Horatio (a character I usually find annoying). They really played up the humour and played down the violence, I don't think I've ever seen Polonius quite so fabulously dull and comical. One of the only faults with the production is their shuffling of scenes which sometimes fails to make sense, but this shuffling also makes the soliloquies less bizarre, because they are spoken when the characters are onstage alone (they mostly move the soliloquies so that other characters exit). They also somehow misplaced Rosencrantz and Guildenstern halfway through, by having Hamlet return without any explanation (the deus ex machina pirates also vanish), and Horatio saying 'so Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead', but not explaining Hamlet's forgery of their execution order. Perhaps this is done to make Hamlet less violent, since the final scene is also remarkable for its non-violence. Hamlet kills Claudius by making him drink the poisoned wine, rather than violently stabbing him (as is usual) and kills Laertes by nicking him with the sword (again, rather than stabbing him) as if in retaliation for foul play. Since it's a modern-dress production, it also very creatively plays on the tension between surveillance and performance. Places are constantly bugged or under surveillance by cameras, and characters alternate between rage at being spied on and compulsively filming themselves and/or explicitly addressing an audience. Overall, an absolutely brilliant production, and David Tennant is officially the best Hamlet in history.