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Review Roundup: HAMLET, Starring Ian McKellen
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We mustn t stamp creative friction out of the arts to satisfy online puritans
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© Marc Brenner
Headlines have accompanied every step of the long, pandemic-delayed run-up to the opening of this production of
Hamlet. The main one was that at the age of 82, Ian McKellen was about to become the oldest Prince of Denmark the UK has ever seen. He was doing so in a production that was age, colour and gender blind, with Francesca Annis, once McKellen s Juliet, now cast as the ghost of Hamlet s father and an Ophelia in the shape 20-something Alis Wyn Davies. So far, so intriguing.
Then bad news began to break. Steven Berkoff, who was due to play Polonius, left the production as had Emmanuella Cole, cast as Laertes, his son. She had complained about his behaviour to the actors union Equity. McKellen was under strain and even in tears – claims hotly denied.
Hamlet: Sir Ian McKellen s age-blind prince divides critics
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Ian McKellen in Hamlet at Theatre Royal Windsor
Credit: Dee McCourt
In a catastrophic week for theatre, which saw the curtain come back down on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s £6 million musical, Cinderella, one knight of the realm took to the stage in what felt like an act of defiance against the Government’s inflexible isolation rules – which has led to the scuppering of entire productions.
Sir Ian McKellen, 82, is playing Hamlet – reckless, you might think, but also an act of chutzpah you can only admire. The actor proved extraordinarily lithe, and as he ran up the metal steps in Sean Mathias’s quasi-industrial production, the years seemed to fall away. Did this aged Hamlet work? Physically, yes: McKellen didn’t need the exercise bike or shell-capped trainers to accentuate the portrait of youth.