Tuesday, July 29, 2008

What noise? [Doctor] Who calls on Hamlet?

Hamlet.  Dir. Gregory Doran.  Perf. David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.  Royal Shakespeare Company.   Stratford-on-Avon.  The Courtyard Theatre.  24 July–15 November 2008.
An alert reader, having read the previous Doctor Who-related post, sent a link to this article in the London Telegraph.  The article reminds us that David Tennant, the current Doctor, is currently playing Hamlet in Stratford!

I've mentioned the stunning number of connections between Shakespeare and the long-running British science fiction series before.  But this seems to be a most remarkable production:  David Tennant and Patrick Stewart are both delightful actors, whether they're saving the world from alien attacks or saving Denmark from Norwegian interference. 

The production itself sounds well-constructed as well.  Mirrors are held up to nature as well as the audience, it seems.

A final note:  RSC, you could probably make a fortune if you were to release a DVD of this stage production.  So please do so!

Also, thanks to Dad, the alert reader in question.
Alternate titles for the post (out of several hundred possibilities):
  1. Who is't that can inform me?
  2. Who hath relieved you?
  3. Who would fardels bear . . . 
  4. Who's there?  [The first line of the play!]
Links: London Telegraph Aricle.

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Bonus Photos!



1.  David Tennant as Hamlet.  I wonder who plays Yorick's skull.

2.  Hamlet holding up a mirror to nature.  Or a silver tray.  Same difference.

3.  Bonus bonus photo:  Patrick Stewart as the King!  (He also plays the ghost of Hamlet's father).
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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

 —The Tempest