Review: HAMLET: ROTTEN STATES by William Shakespeare (retold by 6Footstories)at The Hope Theatre, Islington 14 Jan to 1 Feb 2020

David Weir • 17 January 2020

‘the right mix of reverence and willingness to tweak the Shakespearian nose’ ★★★★

Who needs four hours for a Hamlet when you can boil it down to a tight, frantic and more or less coherent 60 minutes? Brevity, after all, is the soul of wit, as someone or other wrote in the very longest of his plays.

We’re in the hall, or at any rate the rehearsal room, of the Player King when he comes back to tell his two fellow tumblers the Prince of Denmark has commissioned a play within his play, the one that catches the conscience of his step-dad.

As the trio get to grips with great Dane’s instructions for The Mousetrap, a ghost pops in to order them to tell the whole rotten state of the court of Claudius and Gertrude, and off we go on a whirlwind tour through ear-poisoning, ghostly walks, madness Nor Nor-West, drowning in a ditch, slings and arrows, undiscovered countries, and a stabbing in the arras.

The fact that the ghost of Hamlet’s father is represented by a spotlight on a picture of a roaring Brian Blessed gives a hint of the larky, inventive staging.

Most of the huge cast are represented with a hat change here, a funny walk there (though Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ain’t read) as the three performers (Will Bridges, Amy Fleming, Jake Hassam) skip, sing, dance, swoop and swing through the famous bits and a fair few of the obscurities.

More than one theatre company’s managed a palpable flop trying this sort of thing but, while the purist yearning for the full experience might wince a bit, this one works with just about the right mix of reverence and willingness to tweak the Shakespearian nose. 

And anyone who can get laugh out of a Shakespeare comedy gravedigger’s definitely doing something right. 

6Footstories, formed by Hassam and producer Nigel Munson, have a bit of form here, with a past three-actor Macbeth behind them, and, here’s hoping, the choice of at least 35 more ahead.

HAMLET: ROTTEN STATES by William Shakespeare (retold by 6Footstories)
Hope Theatre, 207 Upper Street, Islington     
14 January to 1 February 2020
Box Office: www.thehopetheatre.com /0333 666 3366

Reviewer David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), published at www.Spotlightpublications.com, and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London), published at http://shop.stagescripts.com/categories/plays/mid-length/drama/better-together.html


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