Hamlet and Q&A - Friday 5th September

29th Performance of Hamlet (my 7th)

Photo of DT at he stage door after 4th September matinee (Photographer unknown as it was posted on OG)

I had an easy drive up today and stopped for a late lunch at my usual spot. I managed to find somewhere nearer the theatre to park with no parking restrictions so that was handy.

This was another performance that I booked when tickets first went on sale online through the RSC website. Consequently I'd been able to choose exactly the seat I wanted (F22) so I'd booked the seat adjacent to the stage right (entrance) walkway. It did mean that the dresses of both the Player Queen and the Dumbshow Queen brushed past me and I had the unusual experience of hearing something beside me on the walkway and turning to see the "monkey" disappearing under the Dumbshow Queen's dress! At another point the draft from David Tennant walking along the walkway moved my hair! The seat also had the advantage of having no seats in line with it so I had a perfect view. It was also the seat that DT stopped at to turn around between the second and third bows!

It was another great performance by all the cast tonight. I thought the intensity of the graveyard scene was especially strong.

When Hamlet was doing his scene with Polonius I noticed that he picked up a stray envelope that had been left on the stage by Ophelia, crushed it into a ball and tossed it into the central aisle. (At one of the earlier performances I noticed that the envelopes all have Ophelia's name written on the envelopes.)

Patrick Stewart was obviously struggling with his voice tonight as it was slightly hoarse and quite croaky but he managed to get through the play okay.

Something I forgot to add in another review was that in one performance Ophelia's petticoat ended up at the back of the stage so she didn't pick it up but just took the dress off stage with her. That meant that when she came back on stage in the dirtied petticoat later, the original clean one was still lying on stage!

There was a funny part tonight as, when Hamlet is talking to Polonius about the cloud that looks like a camel, weasel and whale, Horatio is laughing at the conversation but tonight the actor Peter de Jersey seemed to be laughing quite uncontrollably so that even David Tennant had a bit of a smile on his face!

The reason that I'd opted to see this performance was because there was a Q&A with the cast afterwards. This started about 15 minutes after the play finished and lots of the cast attended. The main absences were Penny Downie and David Tennant. Obviously I was a bit disappointed by the latter but it did mean that the other members of the cast answered questions too which was interesting.

Afterwards I walked to my car and got home by about 2.00am.

Next performance of Hamlet for me: Saturday 20th September