Hamlet – ****’ 4.5 Stars
With the show making entertainment news, Benedict Cumberbatch stared in one of the Shakespeare greater Hamlet. Previously, the star of the show personally had to ask audience members to turn off their cameras, but on the Monday night there was no need as he was focused as ever on his role and put in one of the best Shakespeare productions of recent times.
Taking place in the Barbican Theatre in London, the set (Es Devlin) was truly outstanding, with the effect of the lighting placed across the stage. Within the first minutes the audiences had their jaws dropped, fascinated by what they were seeing.
Although the story of Hamlet was presented with such quality under the direction of Lyndsey Turner, there was one thing that people may of spoken about which was the role of Ophelia played by Siân Brooke. For many of people the character just wasn’t coming across as believable and there were a number of people who had mentioned this during the interval.
This wasn’t the case for us. We loved Sián and her portrayal. With such an important female role it is quite disappointing for the media to concentrate on her performance as she may have never had a role as this before. We thought she was strong and her and Benedict worked well together.
However with the quality of the performances, one can understand how certain actors may feel overshadowed.
Overall the show should deserves a healthy 4.5 star rating due to the quality in the performance (all performances), time taken on the Shakespeare set and the high level of entertainment it provided to the audience of all ages.
Tiger Paws Junior’s Stories 4.5 Stars
Tiger Paws Junior 