Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Paapa Essiedu is a dazzling, all-encompassing prince: RSC’s Hamlet reviewed

Plus: a triumphant Chekhov by Zoom

Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in Royal Shakespeare Company's 2016 production. Image credit: Manuel Harlan / RSC 
issue 27 June 2020

The Beeb has released Simon Godwin’s Hamlet staged by the RSC in 2016. The director makes one major change and leaves it at that. Elsinore is transposed to a present-day African republic where members of the ruling clan are jockeying for power after the dictator’s death. This chimes with our understanding of geopolitics and lends simplicity and coherence to everything else.

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