Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Scarecrow83]

The Royal Shakespeare Company's latest revival of Hamlet, starring DT(I apologise for that crime against English) and Patrick Stewart has begun its run at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford upon Avon.
Generally, the reviews for Tennant's performance have been positive but make the point that compared to other great Hamlets of recent times, in the words of Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph
'what's lacking at present, is weight and depth...Tennant's prince seems merely resigned and wearily fatalistic.'
There is a good summary of the first wave of reviews at
www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/06/theatre
The BBC Radio 4 arts program Front Row also sent a reviewer to the first night. The results can be heard at:
www.bbc.co.uk/arts/frontrow
This program is available for the next week(legally, that is).
Listen closely for the extract from Act 2, scene ii.

[Scarecrow83]

Further to the previous post, the 6000 tickets available for the production's London season went on sale overnight and were sold in three hours.
Not quite Kylie's three minutes but not bad for a piece of classic theatre.

[Theta Sigma]

There is an article on David Tennant's performance on Shakespeare in today's Sydney Daily Telegraph:
"London: Dr Who star David Tennant has fulfilled a concert pianist's dying wish by using his skull in performances of Shakespeare's Hamlet."

The skull used to be that of Andre Tchaikowsky, a Polish Jew who escaped the Holocaust and settled in Britain. He bequeathed his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use as a prop.

Tchaikowsky died in 1982 from cancer at the age of 46.

"The skull featured in 22 performances of the "Alas poor Yorrick" scene in which Hamlet holds aloft the skull of the court jester unearthed by a gravedigger."