Did the play still have what it takes, nearly 40 years on? Michael Billington certainly thought so. Janie wasn’t so sure – she’s never been convinced by Orton. I thought this one worked better than the revival of What the Butler Saw at the National, which I recall disappointed me, so I didn’t find it dated; but Tom Keatinge did.
But who cares – I’ve seen the play now and mum couldn’t stop me this time.
Anyway, The National obviously felt the urge to have another go at Hamlet less than 12 years later, with Simon Russell Beale, Peter McEnery, Sara Kestleman and Denis Quilley to name but a few.
Janie remembers being impressed by the acting, but still not really relating to or engaging with Shakespeare. I remember feeling that I had probably previously seen the best production of Hamlet I was ever going to see, despite thinking that this was pretty darned good; especially Simon Russell Beale’s performance.
Very good indeed.
That’s what I wrote in my log.
But you don’t want to listen to us. Here are some reviews. First up – Nicholas de Jongh, who also liked Simon Russell Beale more than he liked the production
Similarly, our friend Michael Billington applauds SRB’s performance and John Caird’s directing of it, but feels that the production strips out the big picture political aspects of the play:
Janie noted in her diary that the play ran for 3 hours and fifteen minutes, so I’ll guess that she was grateful for John Caird’s cuts of the political elements – goodness knows how long the play would have taken in John Caird’s hands if we’d also had the Fortinbras sub-plot to deal with.
Still, to summarise the critics – they warmed to the production almost exclusively because of Simon Russell Beale’s quality. I’m surprised that no-one gave their review the headline, “Saved By the Beale”. They missed a trick there.
This was a great production. I recall gently persuading Janie to see Macbeth again – she’s no fan of Shakespeare and felt that she had “done” Macbeth when seeing the 1994 Jacobi version.
It was the pull of Tony Sher and Harriet Walter that won Janie round, firstly to attending and in the end to admitting what a fabulous production this production at The Young Vic was. It was fast, it was furious, it was very memorable. Greg Doran knows a thing or two about doing Shakespeare.
The Theatricalia entry reminds me that the 2000 version was an RSC touring production that started at the Swan in late 1999 and ended up at The Young Vic in mid 2000.
In truth we don’t remember much about this one. I made no notes in my log about it. I think we quite liked it, but it felt like fairly standard Hampstead Theatre fare.
The Hampstead was still in the portacabins back then, so small, chamber-style work was all the place comfortably could do. Still, we liked the place and went occasionally.
We saw it on a Friday evening, so no doubt, in those days, we went to Harry Morgans in St John’s Wood for some crazy=cracing-J-food on the way to the theatre.
We saw this one as part of an extraordinary whistle-stop long weekend which took in three plays at Stratford (this the first of them), a motorised hike to the Welsh Borders for lunch at The Walnut Tree before going on to Hay-On-Wye for some overnight- second-hand-book-buying on my part before stopping off for a long lunch at Raymond Blanc’s place (Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons) in Oxfordshire and then home. Friday to Monday. The other bits have been written up separately from this piece – click here or below:
I think we stayed in the Shakespeare for this trip. Janie booked it but only wrote down “Twelfth Night Room £115 per night” which I suspect in those days was a suite or certainly a superior room. I looked after most of the rest of the trip, including The Old Black Lion in Hay and Le Manoir.
Similarly Suzannah Clapp in The Observer, whose review reminds me that the critics main reservation about this play is that they didn’t like it as much as they liked Elyot’s (also wonderful) My Night With Reg.
Janie and I took a short break in Stratford, starting, I think, on the Wednesday afternoon. Details in my diary are scant and Janie’s 1996 has gone walkies (perhaps only temporarily).
I am pretty sure we stayed at The Shakespeare, as was our wont at that time. I mentioned in our 1994 visit:
we stayed at The Shakespeare Hotel that time; I think for the second and possibly the last time. We found the room a bit pokey…
…but on reflection I think this 1996 visit was also the Shakespeare and quite possibly the last visit to that hotel.
As for the play/production, we absolutely loved it. The cast included several people who went on to great things, not least Joseph Fiennes, David Tennant, Stephen Boxer, Teresa Banham and director Michael Attenborough. Here is the Theatricalia entry for the play/production.
One memorable thing about the night we visited was the excitement around the presence of HRH The Prince Of Wales and Camilla (subsequently Duchess of Cornwall). The Other Place isn’t really that sort of place, so the royal attendance was more than a bit of a surprise.
The play/production was very well received, for good reasons.
If my memory serves me correctly, we saw Peer Gynt as a matinee on the Saturday and then Twelfth Night in the evening. It might have been the other way around.
Anyway, Janie and I voted this one very good, as indeed we voted Peer Gynt.
Coincidentally, I realise at the time of writing (October 2019, almost exactly 25 years later), Janie and I saw Emma Fielding star at Stratford again last week in A Museum In Baghdad.
In amongst the heave of getting Z/Yen started that autumn, Janie and I did make the time for a solitary long weekend in Stratford-Upon-Avon, during which we saw three plays.
Not exactly a rest cure…
…said Janie, when I latterly (c25 years later, October 2019) showed her the evidence of that weekend.
The evidence shows that we stayed at The Shakespeare Hotel that time; I think for the second and possibly the last time. We found the room a bit pokey.
Anyway, we saw this David Edgar play on the Friday evening and thought it superb. I’ve always been a fan of Edgar’s plays and this is a good example of his work.
Anyway, we loved this play/production, that’s for sure. The notion of art and culture fusing/transferring both from west to east and from east to west is more or less received wisdom now, but the debate in the play, especially while the southern slavic region of Europe was still in turmoil, felt very topical and of the moment in 1994.
Did we eat in Fatty Arbuckle’s that evening? Quite possibly, but unless more evidence turns up we’ll not know for sure.
