LONDONIST Wednesday 10 Feb 2010

Theatre Review: Tower Hamlet @ The Courtyard

If you found the all star Christmas BBC Hamlet a bit, well, yawn then there's a production you should check out in Old Street. You might think you know Hamlet, indeed, it's probably best you have a working knowledge of the story but this show, Tower Hamlet, mixes things up good and proper.

Set in the East End borough and drawing on local history this Hamlet uses five different kinds of theatre. Five different groups of actors interpret scenes using different methods. We open with 'traditional British Shakespeare' but with a bit of East London street speak wrapped around Shakespeare's atmospheric ghost watching. Then we're at court with a Stanislavski group. Confusingly the Queen has what might be an authentic Danish accent and our Hamlet is a more slender David Tennant, but quite a lot better. Then over at Polonius' house, Ophelia is a handsome, camp Spanish man in a leotard, bouncing around coquettishly then bullied by his/her father, a female actor playing a fearsome Marlon Brando, playing Polonius. Stay with us.

When Hamlet sees the ghost, he's embodied by an incredibly talented female mime, conveying his fear, horror and fascination through her movement across the stage and when the Ghost speaks it's with a group of Grotowski actors in white, heavy on the melodrama, and theatrical movement and filled with spiritual dread.

Labelled "research theatre" the production is a public arts education initiative for Tower Hamlets. The production plays with Shakespeare and Hamlet through history. After all, there is no definitive text, gender has always been fluid, interpretations and meaning alter through time. So here we have many Hamlets and Ophelias of both sexes, speaking the original verse beside modern sections. The art of acting is made explicit without intruding on the enjoyment and even enhances the story you think you know. Are we in a political drama, a spiritual or psychological crisis, a surrealist tragedy or soap opera? Whatever, it's tremendous fun, interesting and intriguing. And you have to see the 'play within a play' done with little plushy toys.

Tower Hamlet is at the Courtyard Theatre, Old Street until 21st February 2010 - 7.30pm. To reserve tickets please email: tickets@thecourtyard.org.uk with the number of tickets required and date. £12, £10 conc

by Lindsey for Londonist

THE FRINGE REVIEW Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Tower Hamlet at the Courtyard Theatre, London

It’s fair to say that experimental theatre may not be everybody’s tasse de thé-atre, but Admiration Theatre thrive on it - even to the extent they go as far to make it educational as well a entertaining for attending audiences.

In their innovative version of Shakespeare’s epic, ’Hamlet,’Admiration Theatre deliver ‘Tower Hamlet’performed using the methods of Traditional British Shakespeare, Stanislavski, Lecoq, Mime and Grotowski. The result was a thought-provoking, comical and energetic display of visual art and dance.

Theatre reviews would generally explain a little about the plot of the play, but unless you are familiar with the story of Hamlet, there is little sense of attending the Courtyard Theatre to watch this production, therefore there is little sense of engaging readers with the plot of Hamlet in this review. For those who are familiar with the story of the Bards Danish Prince - together with an interest in theatre as a pure art form and power of expression - ’Tower Hamlet’is a must.

Played in the round, the scenes alter dramatically from one form of acting to the next and transform Shakespeare’s tragedy into a tragi-comedy. Opening with Traditional British Shakespeare, the actors slip effortlessly between different methods which at times borders on the verge of satire. With each scene the styles contrast between the surrealism of Stanislavski and Grotowski with the energy of mime.

Each theatrical style is played in groups of actors, thereby giving us several Hamlets and several Ophelias, which included Regina Fichter’s convincing mime of Hamlet seeing the ghost of his father and the bearded Giorgio Spieglegefield’s amusing Ophelia dressed in her ballerina’s costume complete with chest hair protruding from beneath the leotard.

Though the script is mostly true to the original, the contemporary take allowed for cultural references such as Hamlet turning up in England seeking asylum under the name of Mr Prince and declaring, "England is good. I can write a book."

Tower Hamlets is full of surprises, thought-provoking, though at times a little baffling. The play runs at the Courtyard Theatre until Sunday 21st February.

Holiday update: The plans to take a trailer along the south coast are in full swing! Although we do need to look into getting a Touring caravan insurance quote, I am delegating this to Milton...

By “The Actor”, The Fringe Review

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