Setting the stage for Hamlet at Bristol Old Vic

With under three weeks to go until Hamlet opens its month-long run at Bristol Old Vic, the actors are deep into the rehearsal process, with show director, John Haidar at the helm.

Working from three folios of the play, Haidar has created his own, leaner version of Hamlet. While giving time and space to his love of Shakespeare’s language, he has also lent it the pace more akin to a thriller, in which the stakes are high from the outset, and the audience are forced to listen, rather than sitting back and waiting for an oft-told narrative to unfold in front of them in the way they expect.

Professor of Shakespeare at the University of Oxford, Emma Smith visited the cast in this phase of creation, pointing out that The Bard himself was used to editing his plays, recognising them as living and breathing entities.

So for the company, as they get to know their characters, now is a time for exploration and play.

And much like a sculptor chipping away to uncover the work of art beneath, they are incorporating ideas and additions that feel exciting and new while also maintaining a loyalty to the text – famed for its treatment of so many deep and universal human themes: action vs inaction; family dynamics; resentment; revenge; love; and grief.

Isabel Adomakoh Young plays Horatio, Hamlet’s closest friend and confidante, who is portrayed in this production as a female character.

(l-r): Mirren Mack (Ophelia), Isabel Adomakoh Young (Horatio) in Hamlet, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Curtis Richard

“With the gender swap, it really brings out different elements of their relationship,” she reflects. “It’s a whole other level of close friendship when you’re going to the extent of helping your best friend kill his stepfather; indeed there are lots of things that happen in the play that would draw lesser friends apart.

“We’ve been exploring what keeps them together, and whether Horatio is actually romantically in love with Hamlet, and if that is reciprocated or manipulated throughout the play.”

Catrin Stewart, as Guildenstern, is also playing a traditionally male character as female. It’s another way to differentiate between her role and that of Rosencrantz, “because lots of the time people think they come as one, and they see the same person – almost like Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” she explains. “And I really didn’t want to do that.

“As an actress I want to approach it by asking why someone is the way they are, and why they do what they do. With Guildenstern, I think she is sympathetic to Hamlet, and her actions start from a good place, but she soon gets out of her depth.”

l-r: Taheen Modak (Rosencrantz), Firdous Bamji (Ghost), Catrin Stewart (Guildenstern) in Hamlet at Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Curtis Richard

“It’s not easy with a play like this to set aside the traditions,” admits Adomakoh Young. “And certainly, the cliché of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or whether Horatio is a good person – those aren’t necessarily the best ways in to building a complex character, and they aren’t necessarily what’s there in the text either. It’s just sort of coalesced over decades, and realistically – centuries – of this show being performed.

“So I think what’s so lovely is treating it as a piece of writing that can tell us certain things, and then bringing new eyes to it as well.”

Audience preconceptions, Stewart believes, may be turned on their head by the twists and turns of Haidar’s directorial style. “He’s not precious,” she says. “We’re doing Shakespeare but we’re not sat here doing the iambic pentameter – it’s more about making the play as accessible, modern, real and understandable as possible. There are some surprising bits in it, I think.”

Catrin Stewart (Guildenstern) in Hamlet, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Curtis Richard

Adomakoh Young agrees, citing the interrupted sentence-heavy dialogue, and the palpable sense of electricity in the room, from the read through on day one of the rehearsal process. “If watching it is anything like rehearsing it, you’ll be catching your breath at the end,” she concludes.

Both actors will be gracing the Bristol Old Vic stage for the first time; Stewart, now living in the city, has seen multiple shows at the theatre before. Adomakoh Young visited in 2013, when her book Lionboy was adapted for a touring Complicité show for young people.

“It just seemed like a magical place, steeped in history” she recalls. “Now to have become an actor and to be performing there, it feels very full circle.”

Isabel Adomakoh Young (Horatio) in Hamlet, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Curtis Richard

Hamlet (age recommendation 12+) is at Bristol Old Vic from October 13-November 12 at 7.30pm, with 2pm matinee shows on Thursday and Saturday. The show will also be live broadcast on November 10 & 11 as part of Bristol Old Vic on Screen. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

Main photo: Curtis Richard (l-r: Billy Howle as Hamlet; Mirren Mack as Ophelia)

Read more: Bristol Old Vic announces the cast for Hamlet

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