I enjoyed the modern setting of this production, which, lacking period frills, brings across more of the daily life of the palace than is usually shown; I enjoyed the clarity of the readings, especially in the interactions between Polonius and his children; and I enjoyed Penny Downie's atypically neurotic Gertrude.
On the other hand, Patrick Stewart seemed to me a very dull Claudius. When he played the part opposite Derek Jacobi in an earlier TV production, he did it in his earlier, blood-and-thunder mode; this time it's in his post-STNG, mild-mannered mode, as everybody's nice uncle (who just happens to have murdered Dad). And to me the conceit of everyone's being on surveillance video all the time just became a nuisance.
Then there was David Tennant. I can't see Hamlet as being at all the same character as the Doctor (Who) in any of his incarnations, and so he probably shouldn't be played in the same way. Moreover, a lot of what Tennant carries over isn't really the Doctor, but the actor doing whatever he feels like, which usually is to play the prat. He could get by with it on the series, and might as one of Shakespeare's fools, but how could Hamlet be anything like this? I begin to understand better how the expression "ham" came into being.
On the other hand, Patrick Stewart seemed to me a very dull Claudius. When he played the part opposite Derek Jacobi in an earlier TV production, he did it in his earlier, blood-and-thunder mode; this time it's in his post-STNG, mild-mannered mode, as everybody's nice uncle (who just happens to have murdered Dad). And to me the conceit of everyone's being on surveillance video all the time just became a nuisance.
Then there was David Tennant. I can't see Hamlet as being at all the same character as the Doctor (Who) in any of his incarnations, and so he probably shouldn't be played in the same way. Moreover, a lot of what Tennant carries over isn't really the Doctor, but the actor doing whatever he feels like, which usually is to play the prat. He could get by with it on the series, and might as one of Shakespeare's fools, but how could Hamlet be anything like this? I begin to understand better how the expression "ham" came into being.