Hamlet
Eddie Izzard’s one-man Hamlet deserves top marks
Every Hamlet is a failure. It always feels that way because playgoers tend to compare what they’re seeing with a…
Hamlet fans will love this: Re-Member Me, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
The Dane gets an interpretive dance makeover: Ian McKellan's Hamlet reviewed
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per…
All a bit Blackadder: Hamlet, at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, reviewed
Never Not Once has a cold and forbidding title but it starts as an amusing tale set in an LA…
A triumph: Young Vic's Hamlet reviewed
Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…
Ian McKellen is riveting: Hamlet, at Theatre Royal Windsor, reviewed
Ian McKellen in his early eighties plays the Dane in his mid-twenties. A production with such a strange innovation should…
Insects of the hour
Did you go to college? If so, then it is overwhelmingly likely that you have been the recipient of a…
No one but Michelle Terry would have hired Michelle Terry to play Hamlet
Regime change at the Globe. The new boss, Michelle Terry, wants a 50/50 ratio of males to females in each…
Keeping it in the family
A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…
Sneers and jeers over Lears
In the 18th century, as Shakespeare began to take on classic status, editors began to notice differences between the texts…
William Shakespeare: all things to all men
The best new books celebrating Shakespeare’s centenary are full of enthusiasm and insight — but none plucks out the heart of his mystery, says Daniel Swift
This year's must-see Shakespeare? Four hours of history in Dutch
James Woodall talks to the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has brought a swathe of Shakespeare’s history plays to the stage in Dutch (four hours of it)
The Heckler: the Shakespeare anniversary has stripped the Bard of his beauty
The feeding frenzy over the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death has reached its peak. Recently we’ve had Shakespeare’s complete…
Why do some museums insist on playing piped music into exhibitions?
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
The Archers v the cricket: which was the more dramatic?
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Smartphones for Hamlet and Heathcliff
Medea says ‘hiiiiiiii’ on the first page of Mallory Ortberg’s hilarious book, which puts smartphones in the hands of literary…
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is far too nice
You can’t play the part of Hamlet, only parts of Hamlet. And the bits Benedict Cumberbatch offers us are of…
Paul Johnson’s diary: Boris would make a great PM – but he must strike now
I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…
Radio that makes you feel the wind on your cheek
After a walk in Richmond Park beset by rush-hour traffic, the Heathrow flight path and a strange swarm of flying…
Michael Craig-Martin pokes a giant yellow pitchfork at the ordinary
Visitors to Chatsworth House this spring might wonder if they have stumbled through the looking-glass. The estate’s rolling parkland has…
