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[tzikeh]

BBC's film of Hamlet, starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, airs Wednesday, April 28 on PBS (as usual, check your local listings).

HIGHLY recommended. Truly a wonderful film adaptation (this is not the kind of film where they just point three cameras at the stage during an RSC production, but rather all of the people involved in that stage version remaking it as a movie). Stewart earned his BAFTA and then some. Everyone awesome except for Ophelia (IMO), but then it's really not an easy role to do well. First time I've seen a Gertrude who ROCKED MY WORLD. And the actors and director explored far more *funny* than I've ever experienced in a production of this play.

Comments

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, Tenant for my birthday is nice. Thanks, PBS!

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh, NICE!

[deaver.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up. They are doing Hamlet this year here at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and so far have had rave reviews. I'll be interested to see the differences between the two versions.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I see every Hamlet I can possibly see. Always curious to see different interpretations.

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

I went into it expecting to love David Tennant - and I did - but Stewart stole the show with his tiny shoulder shrug at the end, IMO.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Stewart was genius from beginning to end. And yes to that thing at the end.

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

My sons saw this on TV when they were visiting their grandparents in England last Christmas. They've been talking about it ever since! Am very much looking forward to it :-)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:D I saw it the moment it finished airing on the Beeb in December. ;) *cough*

[gin200168.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday to me! :-D (and my birthday's on a Wed this year? Dang. :-( )

I've loved Hamlet since AP Lit in high school. I've always been partial to the Branagh/1996 version myself, but I do like seeing how people keep re-staging one of the best stories ever written.

Stewart and Tennant should be a monster lineup too.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Stewart and Tennant are a one-two punch, for sure. It's an interesting take on the play (not a crazy-director-concept take; just a different interpretation that makes total sense. I love when that happens). Also, they follow the structure of the Bad Quarto, but, by and large, they use the most familiar text. It is fascinating how the rearrangement affects the narrative build.

Try going into it with the mindset that you've never seen it before. It's a revelation.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

Holy wow. *shreds vow never to see another version of Hamlet*

HAMLET

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I will see any and every version of Hamlet ever. I can always learn something from a production of Hamlet, even if what I learn is "no one should ever do Hamlet that way." But that illuminates parts of Hamlet too, in its own, oh-my-God-get-me-out-of-here kind of way.

(This one, however, is FRICKIN' AWESOME). Stewart is unbelievably good--I've seen his Claudius in the 1982 BBC video (with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet), and talk about watching an actor grow. Tennant's manic, "mad" bits of Hamlet often looks like the manic bits of his Doctor, but it's completely appropriate to the role, and he gets to show off some serious emotional depth, as well. His approach to the first monologue is *shockingly* different, to me, than others I've seen, in terms of emotional reading.

Can't wait to discuss more when people have seen it!

(I grabbed it the moment it went up after it aired on the Beeb, and bought the Region 2 DVD as soon as it was available. Plus downloaded all the specials about the approach to rehearsals and readings, and read all the production blogs. *g* I'm... just a little bit of a Hamlet fangirl.)

Re: HAMLET

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

I'm... just a little bit of a Hamlet fangirl.)

MY GOODNESS I HAD NO IDEA AT ALL.