Show Pics: David Tennant Rehearses RSC\’s Hamlet

Previews begin on Thursday (24 July 2008) for one of the year’s most hotly anticipated plays, the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, with Doctor Who star David Tennant returning to the stage to take the title role. But for those who can’t wait, take a sneak peek at the rehearsal pictures from Stratford-upon-Avon, where the production runs in rep in the Courtyard Theatre from 5 August to 15 November prior to a West End transfer in December (See News, 9 Jun 2008).

The production is directed by RSC chief associate Gregory Doran, who also directs the same company in Love’s Labour’s Lost, the RSC’s first staging of the play in more than 12 years, with Tennant playing the lovelorn Berowne from 2 October 2008.

Tennant said in a recent interview he was thrilled to be teaming up with Doran, who he worked with early in his acting career: “It’s great to be working with Greg again. There’s a great feeling about the company and a real sense of something new and exciting about the RSC at the moment.” He also described it as “very exciting and humbling and terrifying and thrilling” to be rejoining the RSC in Stratford, a town he describes as a “very special place to work” (for more interview extracts, visit www.whatsonstage.com/ midlands ).

Tennant stars alongside Patrick Stewart, fresh from his Tony-nominated Broadway success with Macbeth, as the Ghost and Claudius. The cast also features: Penny Downie as Gertrude, Oliver Ford-Davies as Polonius, John Woodvine as the Player King, Peter de Jersey as Horatio, Edward Bennett as Laertes and Mariah Gale as Ophelia (See News, 27 May 2008). After Stratford-upon-Avon, Hamlet then transfers to the West End from 9 December 2008 (previews from 3 December) to 10 January 2009, the first production in the RSC’s winter residency at the Novello Theatre.

– by Theo Bosanquet