David Tenant in Hamlet BBC2 in about TWO MINUTES!

[Clary]

Just to let you all know

DD and I planning to watch it

Polonius was the Chancellor (the one with the chain of office), and Ophelia's father; Laertes was her brother.

Hamlet was only feigning madness, to put Claudius off the scent; he said after he saw the ghost for the first time that he would "put on an antic disposition"; later he says?I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw? - though it can be argued that there was a pretty thin line between feigning & reality to his madness.

My 5 yr old loved it. The best version I have seen of Hamlet was directed by Ingmar Bergman. It was in Swedish and no surtitles (hadn't realised when I'd booked). My then dp begged to go at the interval but I refused (tickets had been expensive ). We were rewarded in the second half by the best stage sword fight I had ever seen (and still the best 20 years later).

I think ds is now of the age where I can take him to the lighter Shakespeare plays which will be lovely.

It's on again tomorrow at 4.40pm on BBC HD

Oh it was SO good. Starting crying during 'to be or not to be' in the light of the doctor and wilf in the cafe yesterday. Cracking performances all round though. Loved ophelias madness and skipping and shoutiness. Always think polonius is the best role, witty, erudite. And gertrude and ophelias slight eye rolling at the compliant lines.

Thank you auntie B for David tennant in fencing whites.

Absolutely loved it. Really really loved it! Loved the staging. Even ds2 (9) was interested. Found myself explaining about soliloquies as a theatrical device to him - and he listened!

Studied this one for theatre studies a level (the play, not this production!) so was ready to leap in as understudy if any of them were ill. ;)

We saw this onstage a year ago and it was absolutely brilliant. DT was amazing - funny, tragic, clever, quick - threw himself into it with enormous energy - and charmed the entire audience, including pedantic old DH who is an old-school Oxford Eng-litter and had expected to be unimpressed. Persoally I am very slow in picking up Plots of any kind and thought I would struggle but I'd not realised how much Shakespeare onstage comes alive in a way it doesn't if you merely pick up a script to read (obvious I suppose since he wrote it for live performances, wasn't it probably "popular entertainment" in those days rather than the 'difficult, highbrow and boring' reputation it unfairly has now?)

thought at the time it was a great shame it wasn't recorded, preserved and available to more people - so it was fantastic news that it was going to be televised.

Watched it all through again last night and shed a couple of tears 'Goodnight, sweet Prince' - sniffle.

DT gave it a good go, but I still kept seeing Dr Who - esp in the feigned madness moments.

Still, I felt much more involved in the plot then when I saw it before - saw Guildenstern & Rosencrantz as Hamlet annoying and agents of his uncle for example -- so he certainly did bring H to life. And the rest of the cast are great. Fell asleep before all the killing started, so looking forward to some sword fighting when I watch the rest tonight.

Loved it. ds1 and dh are big Hamlet fans. I'm not.
I've seen Hamlet twice on stage, and the lead actor has never been sufficiently charismatic to hold my attention in the long soliloquys.
at Nymphadora having seen this on stage.

Hi roisin

Was much better on stage too

The TV obviously has better sets but they kept the mirrors floors and walls which were in the stage version

How did the tickets go down with the boys BTW?

Wished they had this kind of thing on TV when I did English Lit A-level. Only did it because I wanted to study A-level French and Biology and in the mid 80s you could only do a certain combination.
Never really got to grips with the books : (
No wonder DT got a bad back whilst doing the play!

Oh, buggar, I had forgotten to set the V+ box to record it (no chance to watch, what with my mother being here). I really REALLY wanted to see this.

Just done a search on Radio Times site, NO REPEATS planned, which is disgusting, seing as progs such as Eastenders get repeated on BBC 3 & so forth.

It's on iPlayer, but I don't know if we'll get time to see it in the next 6 days.

I don't suppose anyone has a recording they can get down to DVD for me (is it allowed to ask that?)?

If you download it from iPlayer you normally have up to 30 days to watch it. Or if you think you might want to keep it, it'll be out on DVD on January 4th.

Lots of interesting stuff on the BBC Hamlet website.

Nymphadora - yes ds1 was really excited when he opened the envelope! We joked that it was for him to take us to the theatre, not 3 of his mates. But he said he didn't think his mates would be that interested!

I have this earmarked to watch on iPlayer in the next couple of days. I studied it at A level and have seen it numerous times. The most memorable one was, oddly, Tim McKinnery (Dippy Lord Percy from Black Adder). He was fabulous.

did the muppets ever do a version?

Hiya roisin!

also of anyone who saw this on stage (inc a pal of mine).

A group of us did go to see LLLost with DT in Scottish mode at RSC last Nov which was fantabulous!

Didya all hear his Desert Island Discs this am? Costello fan and likes the Housemartins' politics! He is soooo my kinda guy!

Well, SEA, since you mention it...

Another one for the Muppet/Hamlet six degrees of separation...