Hamlet Resource Pack: Ten Facts About Hamlet

Posted on November 29, 2011 by kradam

Hamlet Resource Pack: Ten Facts About Hamlet

Welcome to the Resource Pack for Hamlet which runs at the Young Vic Theatre from 28 October 2011 to 21 January 2012. Resource packs are created for the majority of Young Vic shows, to provide an insight into the plays we produce and how we produce them. Please check back for interviews with the cast and creative team.

The Hamlet resource pack has been written by Lootie Johansen-Bibby.

Enjoy!
Taking Part Department

______________________________________________________

TEN FACTS ABOUT HAMLET

1. Hamlet is the most widely performed play in the world. It is estimated that it is being performed somewhere every single minute of every day.

2. Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play and uncut would take between 4 and 5 hours to perform. Hamlet has 1530 lines, the most of any character in Shakespeare.

3. One of the earliest re-mounts of Hamlet was on board a ship called The Dragon, anchored of the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607.

4. It is believed that Shakespeare appeared in the play as the Ghost at the Globe.

5. In the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Hamlet in 2009, David Tennant used a real skull as a prop in the gravedigger scene. The skull had belonged to the composer André Tchaikowsky who bequeathed it to the RSC when he died in 1982 ‘for use in theatrical performance’. David Tennant was the first actor to use the skull on stage in a performance.

6. The first actor to play Hamlet was Richard Burbage, the lead actor in Shakespeare’s company, The King’s Men.

7. The castle in which the play is set really exists. It is called Kronborg castle and was built in the Danish port of Helsingør in 1420s by the Danish king, Eric of Pomerania.

8. At the end of every play performed at the Globe, four dancers, two dressed as women, would perform an upbeat, bawdy song and dance routine called a jig – even if the play was a tragedy like Hamlet.

9. Where now we say ‘I’m going to see a play’ in Elizabethan times, people talked about ‘going to hear a play’.

10. Shakespeare advertises his own work in the play. When Polonius interrupts the players and proclaims that he enacted Julius Caesar and was ‘accounted a good actor’ in Act 3 scene 2, he is reminding the audience that he will soon be starring in Shakespeare’s production of Julius Caesar.

To Win or Not To Win FREE Hamlet Tickets?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by youngvicstaff

Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet or another? I ask the average non- or semi-Shakespeare fan what their favourite story from arguably our most influential author is, and it usually has some correlation with what they studied back in the classroom.

If that is the case then I guess mine should be Macbeth, following my captivating performance as Macduff in Drama Studies (Year 9). My teacher (a harsh critic) called me “brittle”, whilst of course my mother found my display worthy of an Oscar (and ice-cream on the way home).

Nevertheless, I seem to lean towards Hamlet for some reason. I never studied it, or acted in it (‘brittle boy’ never made it past Year 9 Drama) and when I mention it to my inner circle (which consists of some very borderline Shakespeare fans), I get that timeless query: “Is that the one with ‘To be or not to be…’” Despite that lack of inspiration, a combination of internet exploring, coupled with DVDs watching many from Sir Lawrence Olivier to Kenneth Branagh take on the role of the Prince of Denmark drowning in a sea of treachery, revenge, incest, moral corruption, madness and revenge means this classic, powerful tragic tale still gets my vote every time.

That’s explains my personal excitement, and why I can rest assured a mouth-watering on stage adaptation with Michael Sheen (Underworld, Twilight, Frost/Nixon, Kingdom of Heaven) in lead role, awaits those lining up to watch Hamlet at the Young Vic Theatre this winter.

And for any teenagers around the UK (some of which may be shifting through Shakespeare for their new year exams), the Young Vic + Penguin’s Spinebreakers Hamlet Script Writing Competition is your time to showcase your own play-writing skills for a chance to experience Hamlet full on. This is not only a fun opportunity, but a chance to step into Shakespeare’s shoes and inspire David Lan (Young Vic’s Artistic Director) with your own storytelling on the themes of ‘madness and revenge’. 2 winners in return will receive a FREE pair of tickets to watch Hamlet at the Young Vic as well as autographed posters and programmes, with 13 runners-up getting a Spinebreakers special edition of the book.

The Hamlet Script-Writing Competition runs until 9 January 2012. Enter here.

From Dwain Lucktung, editor of Penguin’s Spinebreakers.co.uk

11 questions with the cast of Hamlet: Pip Donaghy

Posted on November 25, 2011 by youngvic

First up in our Hamlet cast series is Pip Donaghy! He plays Barnardo, Player King and the Gravedigger.

What do you like about your character in Hamlet?
My first players’ frailty

Favourite word?
Bollocks!

Proudest moment?
My God! I’m a dad!

If you could have a room full of any one thing, what would it be?
Light

If 28 hour days existed, what would you do with the extra four hours?
Sleep

Favourite holiday?
Applecross – Scottish Highlands

Weirdest quirk?
Concentrating on being in the present

Favourite play?
Juno and the Paycock

If you had one super power, what would it be?
Flying

Do you have any regrets?
Not playing Falstaff

Favourite midnight snack?
Cheese on toast

Day seats are available for all remaining performances of Hamlet. Tickets from £10, bought in-person on the day of the performance from 9.30am.

Hamlet Resource Pack: An Introduction

Posted on November 23, 2011 by kradam

Enjoy!
Taking Part Department

——————————————————————————————–

HAMLET: AN INTRODUCTION

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most famous plays in the world. It has been translated and performed all over the world, on stage and on screen. Quotations from the play have become embedded in the language we use today: ‘neither a borrow nor a lender be’, ‘suit the action to the word, the word to the action’, ‘to be or not to be’, ‘the lady doth protest too much methinks’ – all came from Hamlet. It has been a major influence on culture and on literature, from numerous critical studies, to new plays and stories based on the characters. And, for an actor, young Hamlet is a part that everyone seems to aspire to play.

The play was written sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is difficult to say precisely when, because publishing worked in a very different way then to now. It was not so easy to simply type, print and copy; all the texts would have been written by hand.

Three early versions of Hamlet exist, called the First Quarto, the Second Quarto and the First Folio . The versions are all slightly different – some lines have been added or omitted, and some words are different. The first quarto of Hamlet was published in 1603 by Nicholas Ling and John Trundell, and printed by Valentine Simmes. It contains about half the amount of text of the second quarto, which was also published by Nicholas Ling in around 1604-5. The first folio, which included all of Shakespeare’s works and was really the first Complete Works of Shakespeare was published in 1623 by Edward Blount and William & Isaac Jaggard. From these three versions, scholars and directors work to reconstitute the ‘original’ Hamlet, but it is almost impossible to know what the original Hamlet was exactly like.

‘Quarto’ and ‘Folio’ are names that actually refer to the size of the paper that the text was printed on: if you imagine a sheet of paper, fold it once in half so you have a rectangle, then fold it again into a square, then open it out and lay it flat, you have eight sections, four on the front and four on the back. This was called a quarto. If you just fold the paper once into a rectangle and then unfold it, you have four sections, two on the front and two on the back. This was called a folio. (Try it with a normal A4 sheet!).

The Hamlet cast

Posted on November 22, 2011 by youngvic

Reviews have been pouring in for Hamlet. Here are some snippets of mentions of some of the cast.

Sally Dexter as Gertrude 'shines' (Daily Mail); 'Michael Sheen’s performance will live in the memory... an audacious achievement' (Evening Standard)

Hayley Carmichael as Horatio is 'fascinating' (Evening Standard)

Vinette Robinson as Ophelia is 'truly touching' (The Guardian); Michael Gould as Polonius gives a 'fantastic performance' (BBC Radio 4)

Benedict Wong as Laertes is 'excellent' (Sunday Times)

'The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern relationship is quirkier than ever as Eileen Walsh joins Adeel Akhtar to exude neurosis and humour.' (British Theatre Guide)

James Clyde, Callum Dixon and Pip Donaghy are part of the 'incredibly strong ensemble' (BBC Radio 4)

Day seats are available for all remaining performances of Hamlet. Tickets from £10, bought in-person on the day of the performance from 9.30am. We hope to see you here!

Kyle Soller wins Evening Standard Theatre Award

Posted on November 21, 2011 by youngvic

Congratulations to Kyle Soller for winning Outstanding Newcomer at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards! Kyle wins the award for his performances in The Glass Menagerie and Government Inspector here at the Young Vic, as well as The Faith Machine at the Royal Court. Well done Kyle!

Here are a few photos of Kyle in action:

Classics for a New Climate

Posted on November 4, 2011 by youngvic

After Miss Julie is a Classics for a New Climate production. Our goal is to reduce the amount of energy taken from the National Grid by 50% in the production of this show. That’s 50% less than we would usually use to produce a show in The Maria studio. By going through this process we hope that we will learn how to make theatre more ecologically sustainable which , we hope, will have an affect on the way we produce across all our theatres in the future.