The Hiddleston Hamlet you’ll never see

Playwright: William Shakespeare Director: Kenneth Branagh Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, Rada, Malet Street, London WC1 Until 23 September (Tickets already allocated via ballot) Running time: 3hrs (including interval) ★★★

The “hype has been huge” for this most exclusive of Hamlets, said Ann Treneman in The Times. The production is a fundraiser for Rada, directed by one alumnus (its current president, Kenneth Branagh) and starring another – Tom Hiddleston (of The Night Manager fame). But since the production in Rada’s 160-seat theatre is on for only three weeks, tickets are nigh-on impossible to get; theatre critics have had to take their chances in the public ballot alongside everyone else. What a shame that only a few thousand people will get to see this “terrific” show in which Hiddleston “makes the role completely his own”. This prince is “emotional, magnetic, canny, and often frolicsome” – and a notably impressive swordsman.

An accomplished Shakespearean actor, Hiddleston’s Coriolanus was “marked by a reckless impetuosity” and his Cassio (in Othello) by a “quiet grace”, said Michael Billington in The Guardian. And both elements are present in this clear, swift-moving, modern-dress production. Hiddleston’s key quality here is “his ability to combine a sweet sadness with an incandescent fury”. But the show doesn’t just belong to Hiddleston: Branagh also draws subtle performances from other members of the cast. The pick of them is Nicholas Farrell, whose Claudius starts as a “wholly plausible, persuasive head of state and then slowly reveals his moral turpitude”. I have my reservations, though, about the decision to turn Hamlet’s friend Horatio into Horatia. Although excellently played by Caroline Martin, I started “to wonder if their spiritual closeness implied sexual intimacy”.

What most distinguishes this from other recent Hamlets is its “sense of humour”, said Nataliia Zhuk in The Daily Telegraph. There are lots of wry comic touches: in the prince’s “words, words, words” exchange with Polonius, for instance, we see he’s reading Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive. However, I wasn’t entirely convinced by Hiddleston: too often he seemed to be giving us “beautifully acted words” rather than lived “thoughts and feelings”. No doubt his performance will grow richer in time – the more’s the pity so few will get to see it.