Ersatz erudition

Harry Potter, who uses the stage name Daniel Radcliffe, is a producer’s delight. By now it’s becoming clear that the four-eyed wizard lacks distinction as an actor. He’s not a comedian, certainly not a leading man or a heart-throb, and he hasn’t the ugliness or eccentricity to be a villain. But this Polyfilla quality means he can be dropped into anything without harming the fabric. His presence in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead — a difficult and at times flimsy exhibition of varsity wit — is an insurance policy that will guarantee brisk business at the box office. He and his co-star Joshua McGuire play Hamlet’s faithless schoolfriends, who pootle around the corridors of Elsinore discussing existence, identity, chance, coincidence and mortality (‘death: the absence of presence’). Radcliffe’s defining attribute, bemused amiability, works well here and he doesn’t seem to mind that he’s being comprehensively outgunned by the goofily funny McGuire.