Hamlet: Globe to Globe, Middle Temple Hall

Hamlet is going global, in more ways than one. Shakespeare’s Globe is taking on the first genuine world tour of the play in theatre history; that’s one play, twelve actors, two years and 205 nations. The tour begins at the Globe itself this April, marking the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth, and will culminate in the same location exactly two years later on the 400th anniversary of his death. 

As the Globe’s artistic director, Dominic Dromgoole has never allowed the theatre to gain the fusty reputation that could so easily befall a Shakespeare focused venue. From last year’s Globe to Globe project - which saw 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 different languages - to his 2007 Romeo and Juliet, which toured the country in a camper van, Dromgoole has refused to rest on his laurels, ensuring that his Globe company is no slave to tradition. 

So it seems fitting that the end of his tenure at the theatre will coincide with the end of this extraordinary tour.

We can’t help but get pretty excited about Hamlet: Globe to Globe. Doing something genuinely novel in theatre is ever more of a challenge, and doing something new with Shakespeare even more so - with productions often falling into the trap of trying to be different for the sake of it.

That couldn’t be further from the truth with this Hamlet. It bears all of the hallmarks of the traditional touring production, if not a traditional Hamlet, with a multi-rolling cast of just eight taken from the company of twelve, mastering two-dozen roles between them. And, at two and a half hours, it’s a good hour shorter than most interpretations. 

A two year run of any show will see the production grow and morph into a slightly different beast as time goes on, but this effect is set to be magnified tenfold with the added influence of a constantly shifting location. To take Hamlet to Elsinore in Denmark (where the play is set) or to Wittenberg (the location of Hamlet’s university) cannot help but throw new light on the text, not just for audience but for actors too, and it must be a gift to any performer of Shakespeare to be given an audience who might actually not know the ending. 

Dromgoole described the production as a ‘lunatic’ idea, but it might just also be a genius one.