I had the tickets for my 21st birthday, as I said I am a big Sherlock fan and I couldn't miss the chance to see Benedict Cumberbatch live. Benedict is my sister's favourite actor in Sherlock so I offered the second ticket to her rather than taking a friend along, I couldn't let her miss this. I had never seen Hamlet before, but I had read the play, so was quite excited that he was going to take on this role. We got the tickets last July, so the wait had been excruciating!
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| Full cast list |
I'll quickly talk about things the press had been going on about regarding the audience etc. and what we experienced on the night. There were not as many young people in as the media would lead you to believe, In fact, we think there were more young people at Richard III (probably due to ticket prices). There were a few loud Cumberbatch fans in, who were running around and messing about whilst in the restaurants and waiting to go in, but once we were inside the auditorium, they seem to calm down when surrounded by other people. They did perform the ID checks, which I think are a good idea to be honest, I hate those people who buy loads of tickets only to sell them on for ridiculous prices. They were very strict with the no phones/cameras, which I also agree with, the actors were very close to the front of the stage for lots of scenes, and the room was not big so it would be very distracting, as well as protecting images of the set etc. We only saw one person trying to take a selfie, who were immediately warned, and a few people trying to take sneaky pictures of Stephen Fry who was sat two rows behind us. Other than that, the audience behaved perfectly. One annoying thing is that some people missed the second half just to go and wait at the stage door. All the cast look exhausted afterwards, especially Benedict, so people standing by the stage door is getting on people's nerves a bit as they then feel obliged to stay and sign things. According to Twitter he even said he needed to go quickly as he had two shows the next day. It seemed better when they said they wouldn't be signing things and they can all go home and rest so they can give a good performance again the next day.
I'll start with the set, staging, lighting and sound etc. The stage is really quite big compared to the size of the auditorium and is very deep. The curtain is a sort of metal box that opens up to reveal Benedict sitting down listening to a gramophone. After this scene, another part of the set rises and reveals the whole stage and the setting for the rest of the play. This is huge, it is a to scale, country estate house entrance hall, including the staircase and chandelier. It goes back really far, and they do use the stage to their advantage. Especially in the second half set during the battles, as they have characters walking away into the darkness, which is really effective. The props were quite interesting, I liked the swords dotted around, and the toy castle and soldiers used to show Hamlet's madness were nice and showed off the childishness of him. They do use all of the stage, from upstairs, to the very front and the very back, running back and forth. There is a carpet which the actors need to be careful of as they did nearly trip on it a few times, especially in the dancing part which is a bit distracting as you don't want them to fall over! The costumes were sometimes quite basic, but were fine. Benedict's changed every now and then, with him wearing different parts of a soldier's uniform throughout the play alongside other things to show his madness. Him in the full uniform, including the hat, walking up and down a table full of serious documents when he was playing madness amused people a lot.
The lightning was nice and worked well with the set, it worked particularly well with the appearances of the ghost and no part was ever too dark. There were a few issues with the sound, at points it was hard to hear the actors when they were at the back of the stage and a buzzing sound kept appearing throughout. We were really close to the front, so I'm not sure people near the back or top would have been able to hear everything all the actors said. Benedict himself was always loud enough and his booming voice filled the whole room when he was shouting (you could hear Smaug at certain points!) Having him at the front of the stage for important scenes was very nice and he was very close to the audience so you could see all of his facial expressions and small movements e.g. of his muscles tensing, which was effective. When actors were upstairs it was sometimes hard to see and I think we got better views than people sitting on the far right as some scenes were done right in front of us, slightly to the left, which I imagine would have been hard to see if you were far away or high up.
Here's a a picture from the programme which is the end of the first half, this storm was accompanied by a huge bang which had people, including my sister, jumping out of their seats, this scene was very impressive. This is the main set as well: (sorry about the shine from the flash, it's too dark to take without the flash on)
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| Ghost of Hamlet's father |
Onto the actors and actresses: Benedict is obviously the stand out performer. He really dominates the stage as soon as he enters each time. My favourite scenes were those he performed either with the ghost of his father or his mother, especially when discussing his uncle. Those with his friends were the funniest and when he was dancing around it was very amusing. The pace picked up a lot in the madness scenes and you could see Sherlock coming out of him in his gestures and how he was speaking the lines. The 'To be or not to be' was in in the right place and came after his madness on the table, which I think worked well as it flipped Hamlet's personality back from silliness to serious and vulnerability. His fencing skills were good, and the tension really did rise in this scene. In fact I heard my sister say 'Oh no' to herself, so people were really into it. I didn't want to even move a centimeter at this part. You can tell he has been working out (possibly for Dr Strange) as he was very fast when running around and looked quite strong and more muscly than usual. Here's his section in the programme in case anyone is interested:
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| Benedict's part of the programme |
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| Image taken from the programme showing just before the fight scene |
The rest of the cast did a good job as well. I liked both the King and Queen, as well as Hamlet's friends, Laertes and soldiers. As I said earlier, the Queen worked really well with Hamlet, especially when discussing her feelings over Hamlet's father and his uncle. Ophelia was a bit boring at times, the piano playing was a bit annoying, but the scene with her flowers and after were really well acted and very emotional. The only character that annoyed me a bit was Horatio. He was always carrying this backpack yet we were not quite sure where he was supposed to have come from and just appeared at random points. When he was supposed to be helping Hamlet e.g. watching the King's reaction to a play, you couldn't really see him (he was placed upstairs) and to be honest Hamlet didn't really need his help. When Hamlet was dying, this could have been a lot more emotional as the actor didn't really do this scene justice or it had been directed wrongly.
Overall, I am so glad that we went and to see Benedict live was incredible. You could see the influence of other characters he has played, especially Sherlock in the faster pace or comical scenes, and I do think he was better live than on screen. The set was incredible and one of the best I have seen. The rest of the cast were good, with some stronger than others, which is a same as everyone needed to be quite strong to match Benedict really and you could tell that some were better than others. Fortunately the King and Queen did well, which saved it a bit a points. The tense moments were great and the comical moments helped to lighten it up a bit and keep interest. Some parts were hard to follow as reviews had warned, by moving lots around or cutting bits it can be dangerous, it did need to be shorter than intended obviously, but by putting it in a modern setting as well, some points were harder to follow than others. Overall, I think everyone will enjoy it really, if not only to see Benedict in a stand out performance.
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