Look, my lord, it comes...

Well, it's approaching and the final details are falling into place!  We have publicity going on (check out Worcester News, The Standard and BBC Hereford and Worcester on Monday 16th) and the cast are 'getting in the zone'.  But there is still time for musing on its meaning.....

The play is full of contradictions. Just one obvious example - Horatio is supposed to be Hamlet’s best mate, and knows all about current Danish politics which he explains at some length in the first scene. A couple of scenes later, though, Hamlet doesn’t recognise him at first, and is surprised to see him in Denmark at all. Later Hamlet has to explain details of Danish life to him as if he was a first-time visitor.

There are plenty of other contradictions, many in the character of Hamlet himself. And the language is still complex and layered. But that is part of the beauty of it. A lot of very clever literary people have used a lot of ink trying to explain what Shakespeare was getting at, and much of it has been inflicted on students at school at one time or another. Questions like is Hamlet really mad, has he got a complex about his mother, is the ghost real, how old is Hamlet, did the Queen know about the murder, and why does Horatio appear not to know what’s going on, simply cannot be answered because the play doesn’t actually provide any information to do so. What it does do, though, is to give us some sense – sometimes as a result of the obscurity and contradictions in the language – of people struggling with the same bewildering conflicts around questions like the possibility of life after death, what is the basis of moral behaviour, what’s the right thing to do in a tricky situation, as we do now – oh, and of course, love, death, swordfighting and ideally a bit with a dog.

In the end the reason we and so many others keep doing Shakespeare is not because it’s great or beautiful poetry, or even because it’s great drama that works brilliantly on stage, nor the fact that it’s hugely entertaining and you don’t have to pay for the rights to perform it, though these are all good and valid reasons. In the end it’s because Shakespeare’s plays tend to tell us that four hundred years ago people were as fascinated by the questions of what is the right way to live and behave, how to deal with people who do bad things and cause suffering to others, and what does it all mean anyway, as we are now – and had, actually, similar responses.

Finally, a couple of technical points which we hope will help. One - Hamlet is famous for featuring a duel towards the end. However, it’s not possible to use real swords in a confined space. Not only is it very far from safe, but it’s often not realised that you need a certain headroom for a four-foot rapier. So we’ve taken a different approach. Two - there just isn’t a bit with a dog. Sorry.