The Guardian's Notes & Queries on Hamlet's Kingship.

A reader asks: "How was it that King Hamlet's brother, Claudius, succeeded him to the throne when he died and not his son, Prince Hamlet?"

Many answers. The last one's probably the best because as with most of Shakespeare's plays and the best of fiction, it's the rules of the world of the play (and how a production interprets them) rather than our reality which are arguably of most importance.