Tom Hiddleston (Sweet 16) (1000)

108 Name: Anon : 2017-09-03 18:45 ID:A3rZwPke

>>100>>105

I think there is so much Shakespeare performed in the U.K. that the "straight up" traditional approach has fallen from fashion. You see it more here in the comedies (think: Merry Wives of Windsor) or at the Swan in Stratford when they are performing lesser known plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries (and sometimes not then). The best productions I have seen are those which are neither wholly traditional nor wholly contemporary, an approach which I think works well with the Histories, which just don't feel right without a nod to their period of writing and/or the period when the events take place. With plays like Hamlet I am more relaxed because they aren't wedded to a particular time, or place really, references to Denmark notwithstanding. I wouldn't expect a trad Hamlet here, not least because of how many other Hamlets there are this season alone.

That said, I still haven't recovered from the awful staging of the Cumberbatch Hamlet. I was ok with the Romanoff Winter Palace theme in the first half but the second half appeared to be staged on a slag heap. I think this was meant to be post-revolutionary Russia, but it looked shit, must have been terrible to act on a steep slope and had no textual justification whatsoever.

PS my husband read the reviews saying that Branagh created "an identifiably Danish" setting and snorted, "What? Are they all eating open sandwiches?" You can't please everyone!!

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