3D Hamlet: A Lost Generation

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Less groovy than it sounds, 3D Hamlet is a routine compression of the great tragedy with a video insert of Alec Baldwin as the Ghost and a meaningless 3D rendition (put on your glasses) of the Players’ Scene.

In the latter, I spotted Richard East. Later in the run, you can also spot Linda Marlowe guesting onstage as Gertrude and Simon Callow as Polonius.

I wonder if they realise what they’re in for. It’s a poky little production in a featureless, low-ceilinged room in the Radisson Hotel on the Royal Mile. It takes just seventy minutes, slashing the soliloquies to shreds, cutting Fortinbras, the gravediggers, most of Horatio and Laertes, and even the end of the play!

Instead, we get modish newspaper headlines, meaningless reference to the Murdoch phone hacking scandal, a really awful Ophelia and a Gertrude emoting sexuality in a beaded cocktail dress with a script in her hand.

One good deed in a naughty world is Sam Underwood’s promising Hamlet, combining thoughtfulness with adolescent impetuosity. Half way through the run (I wrote “ruin”) he shares the role with Anthony Rapp of Rent fame.

- by Michael Coveney