Hamlet with Andrew Scott
August 22, 2017. Harold Pinter Theatre
I first saw Andrew Scott at the Royal Court in Birdland. He was astonishing.
We’ve all seen him as Moriarty to Cumberbatch’s Sherlock. His Jim Moriarty is a brilliant genius with a distict whiff of the unhinged maniac.
This works brilliantly for his Hamlet. You really believe the gamut of emotion he brings to the stage. He embodies Hamlet as a late teen very well. One who’s dealing with chaotic teen hormones and then has all this dropped on him. He’s up, he’s down. He struggles to control his emotions. His eyes look wild and then calm. He’s unpredictable.
Andrew Scott is magnificent. I found his performance incredibly emotional. I cried. I rarely cry.
I also enjoyed Jessica Brown Findlay as Ophelia and that doesn’t make the character of Ophelia any less unrelatable to a modern woman. But it felt a little clearer that her public shame was immense and her sorrow great, particularly after the death of her father.
I enjoyed the end of the play too. We know the death count is high but taking the other bodies off the stage to focus on the death of Hamlet and his dying word worked well. (Although I think some liberties were taken with the allegiances in the afterlife – did Gertrude really prefer her second husband knowing what she knew? I struggle with that)
I like that the Harold Pinter stage had been remade as a black box. It felt just as intimate as the Almeida. Islington in the west end.
I also enjoyed that all the Hamlet’s I’ve seen now have all been so very different. Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch and now Andrew Scott. Wish I’d seen Rory Kinnear at the NT. This play is never the same. Each interpretation is so very personal.
4/5 Andrew Scott is a wonderfully unpredictable Hamlet. Emotional.
