Alas, poor Hamlet’s in a muddle

Hamlet (Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London) Verdict: A family affair

FORMER Tory MP Gyles Brandreth has returned to his other profession — acting — in a three-person Hamlet, alongside his barrister son Benet and the latter’s actress wife, Kosha Engler.

Set in what looks like a country cottage, the tone is defiantly middle-class. Events kick off with John Humphrys et al advising us on the Today programme that the King has been poisoned.

The three-person gimmick poses challenges for Imogen Bond’s adaptation that reduces the sometimes fourhour Shakespeare play to 90 minutes.

She shuffles the order, cutting between flashbacks and soliloquies and then plunging into the present with Engler and Brandreth Sr switching roles.

It adds a saucy frisson to see Benet’s wife playing his mother; and his father getting a bit fresh with her (very politely, of course).

But with so few actors playing so many characters, I did wonder if the audience would get as confused as Hamlet (his uncle is his father; Ophelia turns into her brother Laertes).

In the title role, Brandreth Jr is a bit like a QC: his soliloquies as if summing up to a jury.

There are nice moments in Simon Evans and David Aula’s production which keep the story ticking along — a thunderclap to the word ‘murder’ is pure Danish bacon.

It’s an accomplished show, but a bit too genial — like an Archers omnibus writ a little too large.