Table of Contents

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Reflections Introduction Stage History 1 The Fifties: Michael Redgrave 1 – Alec Guinness – Richard Burton – Paul Scofield –Michael Redgrave 2 2 The Sixties: Jeremy Brett – Peter O’Toole – David Warner – Nicol Williamson 3 The Seventies: Alan Howard – Ian McKellen – Albert Finney – Ben Kingsley – Derek Jacobi – Frances de la Tour 4 The Eighties: Jonathan Pryce – Michael Pennington – Anton Lesser – Roger Rees – Kenneth Branagh 1 – Mark Rylance 1 – Daniel Day-Lewis 5 The Nineties: Kenneth Branagh 2 – Alan Cumming – Stephen Dillane – Ralph Fiennes – Alex Jennings – Paul Rhys 6 The Noughties: Mark Rylance 2 – Adrian Lester – Samuel West – Michael Maloney – Ben Whishaw – Jamie Ballard – David Tennant – Jude Law 7 The Teens: Rory Kinnear – Michael Sheen – Jonathan Slinger – Maxine Peake – Benedict Cumberbatch – Paapa Essiedu – Andrew Scott 8 Simon Russell Beale, Hamlet Observed: The National Theatre at Work 9 Hamlets at Elsinore Main Sources Further Reading Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

An in-depth account of five leading performances of Hamlet from this century drawing on unique interview materials and enhanced by portraits of other key performers from each decade since the 1950s.

About the Author

Jonathan Croall is a theatre historian and biographer, and author of Performing King Lear: Gielgud to Russell Beale (The Arden Shakespeare, 2016), John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2011) and Buzz Buzz! Playwrights, Actors and Directors at the National Theatre (Methuen Drama, 2008).

Reviews

In Performing Hamlet Croall gives a glimpse into preparing and performing the role of Hamlet … Croall's examination is not purely academic: he enriches it with interviews of five actors and six directors engaged in productions of Hamlet. This makes the text much more appealing and applicable to the modern actor/director. Chapter 9 offers an extensive “day in the life” look at the 2000 National Theatre production with Simon Russell Beale as Hamlet. This chapter helps convey the fast-paced life of the professional actor in preparation, performance, and touring … This is a solid and fresh study for actors/directors and those researching the production history of Hamlet. Summing Up: Recommended.
*Choice*

An extremely impressive work which will be of great interest not only to actors and directors tackling this most demanding of plays but also to people studying Hamlet as a work of literature.
*Shiny New Books*

This absorbing study embraces an extraordinary range of directorial and acting approaches to the Himalayan challenges offered by the play. As might be expected in the light of his magisterial biographies of John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike, Croall’s account of the phenomenon that is the play is superbly researched. It is hard to do justice to such a rich array of viewpoints.
*Australian Book Review*

I’m so glad to see such a detailed analysis of the work Simon Russell Beale and I did together. The book looks very handsome and has been much admired.
*John Caird*

I had a wonderful time reading the book. All the chapters are fascinating.
*Simon Godwin*

'Tracking more than 70 years of a range of actors tackling one of the biggest roles in theatre, Jonathan Croall’s insightful Performing Hamlet....is a look often not just behind the scenes, but deeper than that. A reflection of the cost, and the catalytic energy, making theatre and performances takes on those who have dedicated their lives to it. And that is what I go to theatre books for.'
*David Byrne, a judge of The Society for Theatre Research’s 2019 Theatre Book Prize*