Hamlet
1980: Rodney Bennett

This is the BBC Shakespeare Plays version of Hamlet, and despite its several significant shortcomings, I personally think it’s on balance one of the finest renditions of the play as a whole, and one of the best portrayals of the character of Hamlet himself.

Like almost all the plays in this massive undertaking, it was made on a relative shoestring. While not a mere recording of a stage production, it is overtly stagey, shot on a soundstage with limited and rather abstract sets and moderate costumes; there is some background music, but it is budget-rate cinematic fare designed to emphasize critical points with ominous chords, devoid of very much interest or color of its own. The play is, however, nearly uncut, and arguably of all available versions, this is one of the few that really trust Shakespeare to know what he’s doing. For my money, it is one of the brightest gems of the whole BBC Shakespeare Plays enterprise.

There are a number of fine performances, but chief among them is Jacobi himself as Hamlet. He brings to the role a sensitivity and subtlety that reveals more about Hamlet than any other performance I, at least, had ever seen when I first encountered it. He imbues the part with rich ironies both in his delivery of his dialogue and in his actions, and he conveys the genuine horror that accompanies the unfolding revelations about Claudius and his father. Jacobi portrays Hamlet as a man of prodigious natural gifts, keen intelligence, and a passionate soul that is always calculating, but is morally overwhelmed by the situation in which he finds himself. Jacobi is uncannily able to imbue potentially weary and overly familiar speeches like “To be or not to be” with a sense that they are being newly discovered and explored; in the next scene his violent treatment of Ophelia is positively frightening.

Patrick Stewart plays Claudius, fresh from his role of Sejanus in the BBC I, Claudius (also starring Jacobi) well before he became widely known as Star Trek’s Capt. Jean-Luc Picard. Claire Bloom, twenty-five years after appearing as Anne in Olivier’s Richard III, has more grace than ever she did there, and wears the role of Gertrude very well. Other lesser parts are less impressive, but all of them are at least adequate, and at best remarkably good. Lalla Ward’s Ophelia is not as memorable, perhaps, as those of either Helena Bonham Carter (1990: Zeffirelli) or Kate Winslet (1996: Branagh), but she brings a good deal of subtlety to the role.

One comic note from a contributor at IMDB: apparently during filming, Patrick Stewart was twitting Lalla Ward because she was currently playing a role in Doctor Who. He would never, he insisted, sink to doing science fiction. Seven years later, of course, he was the linch-pin of the new Star Trek empire. (There are those who would yet argue that he hasn’t done science fiction, but that’s another matter.)

Buy the complete BBC Shakespeare Plays at Amazon. Note that this will require a Region 2 player or a region-free player: it will not play on most normal American DVD players. Nevertheless, the price is so reasonable that even with a region-free player thrown into the deal, you’ll come out ahead.

Buy the BBC Shakespeare Plays Tragedies Giftbox at Amazon. Unlike the complete series, this is in a North American video format, and it includes five plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Othello.

Buy the complete set of the BBC Shakespeare Plays or individual plays (including this one) in Region 1 format direct from Ambrose Video.