Exploring the greatest new and classic plays

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Greg Hersov

Greg Hersov

Greg Hersov

Greg Hersov was the Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 1987 to 2014, where he directed more than 50 productions, including plays by Wilde, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Miller, T Williams, Pinter, Mamet, Baldwin, Cartwright, and many more. He has worked with a stellar list of acting talent including Liam Neeson, Bernard Hill, Brenda Blethyn, John Thaw, Kenneth Cranham, Lesley Sharp, Helen McCrory, Adrian Scarborough, David Tennant, Claire Skinner, and Cush Jumbo to name but a few. His Shakespeare productions include Romeo and Juliet with Michael Sheen, King Lear with Tom Courtenay, The Tempest with Pete Postlethwaite, and As You Like It with Cush Jumbo. Greg has also been a Trustee of the Talawa Theatre Company.

Recommended Play(s)

Greg recommended Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin.

 

 

036 – Hamlet by William Shakespeare

036 – Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Cush Jumbo at the Young Vic 2021
Photo: Helen Murray

036 – Hamlet by William Shakespeare

It is arguably the world’s most famous play. The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark contains all of the elements of great drama: a revenge thriller, a family ripped apart, a tragic love story, political ambition and intrigue, and wondrous poetry and philosophical insights, but most of all a uniquely intelligent, vibrant and sympathetic title character who we see in all his brilliance and frailty. Hamlet’s assignment to avenge his father’s murder wears heavily on his young shoulders, already pressed down by grief and his mother’s o’er hasty marriage. His dangerous and solitary commission is bedevilled by his own moral scruples and his fragile mental stability, and though we know that it cannot go well, we are with him every step of his intense journey.

It is believed that Shakespeare started writing the play in 1599, a miraculously productive year in his career when the Globe theatre was built, and he had already penned Henry V, As You Like It, and Julius Caesar. As the century and Queen Elizabeth’s reign were drawing to an end, the play may have reflected some of the anxiety of the time about the future and the succession in particular. If drama is supposed to be “the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”, as Hamlet councils the travelling players, how does it now “hold a mirror up to” our age?

As we record this episode a new production is on stage at the Young Vic theatre in London, with renowned actress Cush Jumbo winning huge acclaim for her androgynous performance in the eponymous role. I am delighted to be joined in the task of attempting to survey the Everest of plays that is Hamlet, by the director of this production, Greg Hersov. Greg was previously the Artistic Director of the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre for 27 years, and the CV of plays he directed there reads like the dream catalogue for The Play Podcast, with countless classic titles old and new, including at least four Shakespeare plays. In Manchester he also forged a very successful partnership with his current Hamlet, previously directing Cush Jumbo in the lead roles in As You Like It, Pygmalion and A Doll’s House.

Note: Given the sheer length and depth of this mountain of a play, about which more has been written than any other in the history of drama, this episode is longer than our usual one hour. The play as published is never performed in full, as it would run to well over four hours, so every director must edit the text for their production. Likewise Greg and I could have talked for much longer, but edited our conversation down to this our best concise version of the play.

Hamlet at the Young Vic runs until 13th November 2021.

Greg Hersov

Greg Hersov was the Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from 1987 to 2014, where he directed more than 50 productions, including plays by Wilde, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Miller, T Williams, Pinter, Mamet, Baldwin, Cartwright, and many more. He has worked with a stellar list of acting talent including Liam Neeson, Bernard Hill, Brenda Blethyn, John Thaw, Kenneth Cranham, Lesley Sharp, Helen McCrory, Adrian Scarborough, David Tennant, Claire Skinner, and Cush Jumbo to name but a few. His Shakespeare productions include Romeo and Juliet with Michael Sheen, King Lear with Tom Courtenay, The Tempest with Pete Postlethwaite, and As You Like It with Cush Jumbo. Greg has also been a Trustee of the Talawa Theatre Company.

Recommended Play

Greg recommended Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin

Photo © Marc Brenner
We have footnotes for this episode …

The Footnotes to our episode on Hamlet include further thoughts on the nature of Hamlet’s ‘madness’, why the flawed hero retains our sympathy throughout the play despite some aspects of his behaviour, and how we can draw a credible psychological path for Ophelia’s descent.

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