National Theatre Hamlet- 2025 Review

I saw the reviews for this production roll in the morning before I saw it, and I hate to say it, but they weren’t lying. I was very unamused and unimpressed by this production. It had so much potential, but it just fell flat in almost every aspect. Robert Hastie’s Hamlet was a major disappointment and unfortunately isn’t the first flop in Indhu Rubasingham’s tenure as the new Artistic Director at the National. 

I’m going to start with the positives: to me, Ben Stones’ concept and design (set and costume) for this production were very straightforward, it was set in a modern ballroom in a palace in Denmark, basically Shakespeare’s original idea, but just in the twenty-first century. I thought the simplicity was nice, I appreciated that it was straightforward; sometimes it’s nice to just relax and watch the play performed without any additional agendas (which, don’t get me wrong, I also love- the malleability of Shakespeare is what makes his works so universal and timeless). I especially loved the mural painted on the walls of the banquet hall, featuring Kronborg castle in Helsingør, Denmark, the very castle Shakespeare based his play on. I loved the way the Mousetrap scene was staged and designed, it was really clever pretty to look at.Jessica Hung Han Yun’s lighting and Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s sound design were lovely. 

Alistair Petrie as Claudius was really wonderful, perfectly embodied the role. I also thought Geoffrey Streatfeild as Polonius nailed the character in a way recent Polonious’ I’ve seen haven’t. He was such a suck-up and goofy dad, he understood the character and played him in a way that was obnoxious without being annoying. I also want to give a special shout-out to Ryan Ellsworth as the ghost- crazy stage presence. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast didn’t really do anything for me. Francesca Mills had potential to be really good, but she either tried too hard to, or was directed to be excessively funny, and this is the biggest theme and crux of this production across the board. The reviews were calling it “ADHD Hamlet,” and they really weren’t wrong. Hiran Abeysekera’s Hamlet was a rambling, speed-talking, jester of Shakespeare’s tragic hero. He raced through most of the dialogue (including and especially 'To be, or not to be.’ Throughout the whole play, but especially at the beginning he was literally speaking in iambic pentameter, and please, don’t get it twisted, the verse and operative words are literally so important, but for the love of all that is good, DON’T TALK IN IAMBIC PENTAMETER!!! It was literally ba-DUM-ba-DUM-ba-DUM-da-DUM-ba-DUM, ba-DUM-ba-DUM-ba-DUM-da-DUM-ba-DUM- no exaggeration. He was just getting on my nerves and was so annoying to watch, and that’s really unfortunate when he has around 4,000 lines of text! He was just erratic, and in the worst way, Hamlet needs to have some manic moments, but please not for three hours straight. I will say, some of his line readings were refreshing and that kept it new for me, but overall, he just didn’t do it for me. I’m not going to go one by one and talk bad about the actors- although most of them felt like spare parts- because that’s just not kind, but also because I blame the director for the whole thing. 

Robert Hastie’s concept was clearly to add as much comedy to this TRAGEDY as possible, he directed the cast to milk every moment possible for laughs. Now, Shakespeare DID write comedy into this play (all of his Tragedies, actually), but this was just so forced and distracting, and what it did was make the audience feel as if they had permission to laugh freely throughout, which led to laughter during Ophelia’s mad scenes. WHAT? I witnessed a similar thing during Abigail Graham’s Macbeth at the Globe 2023 in the scene where Macduff’s son is brutally murdered. It’s just inappropriate, and it’s not laughter out of discomfort, it’s genuine ’this is funny’ laughter. Personally, I think it’s tasteless, and that's just the start of it. Polonius’ death was just horrendous, there’s no way to describe it other than awkwardly staged with too many awkward beats that were just distracting. Laertes’ reaction to Ophelia’s death was like watching someone get their insurance claim denied, and I don’t blame the actor for that, I blame the director. There was far too much breaking of the fourth wall, to the point where it lost its effectiveness because it was overdone. The overt comedy throughout quite a dismal play personally created an issue for me by the end, because it felt like all the tragic depth of the play was just washed up, and like there were no stakes, and I certainly felt no emotions about the bloodbath at the end. And, having the entire cast, including the deceased characters, line up around the stage during the final scene is great and all, if you actually do something with it. Alas, much like the play, I could keep going, but I'd rather not.

Overall this production, just didn’t do it for me. Some people enjoyed it, and that’s great! Anything to get people enjoying Shakespeare and going to the theatre, that’s what’s most important to me. I do, however, think as a society we’ve started giving standing ovations away a bit too easily and we need to re-evaluate what good art looks like.  

Rating: 2 / 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️