The play's the thing...

...and yes you can have that!

I have to admit I had my doubts about this production when I learned they were giving Hamlet a modern setting. Performing Shakespeare in modern dress sounds like it would be painfully incongruous, and in the hands of lesser players, it could easily have been a disaster. I began watching prepared to be confronted with a jarring anachronism...I should have known better...I should have trusted The Doctor ^.^

David Tennant is brilliant. If I didn't already love him, I would now. Seriously...there he is: barefoot, wearing jeans and a silly t-shirt; as un-elizabethan a costume as you're ever likely to find...and the words just tumbled off his tongue as though he were just goofing around babbling whatever silly thing popped into his adorable little head..but..it was Hamlet. And he goes beyond playing Hamlet, the tragic character we all had to study in school, and creates Hamlet the..person. He plays the tragic role beautifully of course, but this Hamlet is also the sort of person who can put up a convincing facade of madness...and have a blast doing it. I laughed out loud several times while watching, and almost felt like I was breaking some kind of rule doing it..it is a tragedy, after all, and a tragedy isn't "supposed" to be funny, right? Well, why not? Without changing the script, without breaking character or doing anything dramatically inappropriate, David makes Hamlet funny. And it's wonderful.

Patrick Stewart, as we all know, can stand on the bridge of a starship spouting technobabble and it feels like the work of the Bard.  There is just something inherently Shakespearian about him. He makes modern English sound like Shakespeare, so of course when he's got dialogue from an actual play, it sounds natural. Put him opposite David Tennant, who makes Shakespeare sound like modern English, surround them with an excellent cast and...I'm just in awe...I mean, I've seen good performances..but I've never seen Hamlet look less like a performance.