Jonathan Slinger talks to Lyn Gardener at The Guardian about his upcoming appearance at the RSC:
"This is the quote that's going to hang me," he says, "but I'm going to try to achieve what people say is impossible. I want to make him a psychologically understandable Hamlet. I do honestly think that's what Shakespeare wrote: a very complex person. And I'm in a slightly win-win situation: if I achieve it, then amazing. And if I don't – and depending to what degree I don't – the worst that people will say is that it was a wholly unreasonable ambition because nobody has ever done it. It will just serve as further proof to those who say it's impossible."
Glancing across at my sidebar, I'd wonder if a few of his predecessors would take issue with that.
Saw the opening night last night and it has to be the best Hamlet ever! Jonathan Slinger did achieve the impossible and pulled off the most eclectic, unclichéd Hamlet ever. The whole performance was perefctly controlled and natural and most convincing. Robin Soans,as Polonius, was also first-rate in a non-caricatured perfomance. And Charlotte Cornwell as the Queen, and Greg Hicks as the King, and Pippa Nixon as Ophelia all excellent. A first-rate piece of direction and production.
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