Hamlet - Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory

Jamie Ballard plays a very happy Hamlet. A cackling, back-talking Hamlet, a cheeky teenager who strives to lift himself out of the writhing disempowerment of late adolescence with a quickfire wit and a rictus grin that flashes into place like a galvanised frog. At times, it is as if Rik Mayall is playing the Dane. There is certainly no sense that this is a sacred canonical text

The lighter interpretation brings out a lot of the hidden comedy in this bleak tale of murder, adultery, insanity and torment – all the things which (as they say in Chicago) we hold dear. This Elsinore has a lot of laughter in it, as Hamlet’s antic disposition totters manically on the edge of high jinks. It also makes Hamlet, who can sometimes be an irritating drippy and self-pitying creature, extremely likeable.

Occasionally, Ballard’s light touch does, however, detract from the thought processes that the monologues are supposed to lay bare. His choppy delivery slices the ‘to be or not to be’ speech into a tumble of fragmented soundbites, losing any sense of a developing thought process, a weighing up of the rather sexy, rather scary possibility of death and suicide. This Hamlet is quick-witted, but not as deep-thinking as he might be.

Jay Villiers’ Claudius, on the other hand, offers tremendous depth. He is no cardboard villain, a fratricidal robber baron who should be hissed on every entry. Instead, his love for Gertrude almost oozes from his pores: like Macbeth, this is a not a bad man but a man made bad by circumstance and some unfortunate choices. And that is, of course, the essence of tragedy.

The remaining cast give decent support: Roland Oliver’s Polonius hits the comic marks well, Francesca Ryan’s Gertrude is nicely tormented, and Annabel Scholey’s Ophelia is delightfully young and innocent. The weakest contribution is, ironically, that of Andrew Hilton, the founder, director and mastermind behind Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory. His Ghost is utterly unethereal, seems positively laid back about spending time in Purgatory, and wanders into Gertrude’s bedroom like a man returning from a midnight pee. It’s not often one can say this, but in this case it needs a little less Shakespeare and a bit more ScoobyDoo.

Overall, Jonathan Miller’s production is a stripped-down staging free of any directorial conceits or cleverness. It seeks merely to present the text as clearly as possible If there is a flaw in Miller’s approach it is that he is a little too faithful to the entirety of the text, with an almost unabridged staging running to over three and a half hours. Two hours – the length of the first half - is a long time to spend even in a comfortable armchair; on the less than luxurious seating in the Tobacco Factory, it becomes an exquisite agony for even the most devoted Shakespeare fan.

Dr Doolittle - Bristol Hippodrome (and tour)

It is all too often the case that when you have shelled out the substantial sum needed to take the family to one of the big commercial theatres – like the Bristol Hippodrome – it is depressingly clear that wherever your money has gone, it certainly hasn’t made its way to the stage. Happily that is not the case with Dr Doolittle – it is truly lavish, with solid-looking sets and, above all, a complete menagerie of highly believable animals. My daughters thought that the Doctor’s dog was actually a real Old English sheepdog, and not just a man in an exceptionally realistic dog suit. And there is a loving attention to detail in the combination of puppet and animatronic beasts: they are constantly in motion in a remarkably realistic manner.

This kaleidoscope of fauna makes a fine frame for the glowing stage presence of Tommy Steele, a showman to the tips of his Chelsea booted toes. He was the star of the very first West End show I ever saw – Hans Christian Andersen in 1974 – and looks remarkably well weathered 34 years later. Admittedly, he’s not as light on his feet nowadays (well he is 70), and the smile is so firmly fixed to his face that it’s hard to know whether it’s been surgically embedded or is merely the result of doing his famous gnasher flash for over fifty years. But he has charisma and presence in buckets, and seems to be loving every minute, which is always a good way of endearing yourself to the audience. Surrounding him are a strong cast with fine singing voices.

If the plot is a little thin, it is no worse than the average pantomime, and considerably more visually spectacular. This is a slick production which offers excellent value for money. And the push-me-pull-you is breathtaking!