JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
Hamlet
Young Vic
GREG HERSOV’S Young Vic production of Hamlet is a powerful piece of theatre that centres and excavates Shakespeare’s engagement with grief and family.
This is not a production concerned with affairs of the state — it is a production that ends with Jonathan Livingstone’s Horatio weeping onstage, with Fortinbras nowhere to be found.
At the heart of Hersov’s pandemic-delayed piece is Cush Jumbo, the latest to join the list of women who have played Shakespeare’s Danish prince. Jumbo was announced as the lead back in 2019 and her performance is well worth the wait.
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth


