To see or not to see... it’s Hamlet by ballot
Tom Hiddleston returning to Rada for a three-week run of Hamlet directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh promises to be the summer’s hottest ticket, and the tiny Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre is going to great lengths to ensure the run is not hijacked by touts. In a first, seats will be allocated via a ballot designed to thwart computer programmes used by touts to bag tickets.
IT IS an unlikely venue for one of the world’s most popular actors: a drama school theatre with just 176 seats. But Tom Hiddleston is returning to Rada for a three-week run of Hamlet, directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh.
It promises to be the summer’s hottest ticket, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art’s tiny Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre is going to great lengths to ensure the run is not hijacked by touts.
In a first for a theatrical show of this kind, seats will be allocated via a ballot system designed to thwart the computer programmes, or “bots”, used by touts to bag tickets. Applications can be made online until 6pm on Sunday, with users required to give their name and contact details.
Successful applicants will be contacted on Aug 9 and will be allowed to buy a maximum of two tickets, and must collect them in person – with proof of identity – an hour before the performance begins. Unusually, there will be no returns queue or day tickets, in another move aimed at preventing resale at inflated prices. The production will run from Sept 1-23.
The security measures go a step further than those implemented by the Barbican for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet in 2015, when audience members were required to bring ID and to keep it on them at all times.
Rada is also keen to avoid the frenzied scenes that accompanied David Tennant’s Hamlet in 2009. When the RSC production transferred to the West End, all 6,000 tickets sold out in one day – many to touts. They were soon being offered for sale online at more than £1,000 for a pair.
Hiddleston, seen most recently in the BBC One drama The Night Manager and touted as a future James Bond, last appeared on stage in 2013, in Coriolanus at the Donmar. He graduated from Rada in 2005.
The new production of Hamlet, staged by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, will raise funds for the academy as part of a £20million redevelopment project that will include a new library and archive, a 250-seat public theatre and new student accommodation. Twenty per cent of tickets will be priced at £15 and available to those aged 25 and under. The most expensive will cost £95.
Critics will have to enter the ballot in the same way as members of the public.
Hiddleston said: “The performing arts exist to bring people together, not to break or keep them apart.
“I hope the funds raised by the production will help Rada continue to provide a wider field of equal opportunity to train actors, stage managers and technical theatre artists, from every background, to a standard of excellence and professionalism.
“We need to keep the doors open for everyone.”
He added that Hamlet “presents almost limitless possibilities for interpretation. I can’t wait to explore them, with this great cast, at Rada”.
Hiddleston has worked with Branagh on film and television projects, and said they had been in discussions about staging Hamlet for some time. “Now felt like the right time, at the right place,” he said.