Shakespeare Plays Available in Video Format
Scholars Online Educational Resources

Home

All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeareana

Available versions

1948: Laurence Olivier

1964: Philip Saville

1964: Bill Colleran, John Gielgud

1964: Grigori Kozintsev

1969: Tony Richardson

1976: Celestino Coronada

1980: Rodney Bennett

1990: Kevin Kline

1990: Franco Zeffirelli

1996: Kenneth Branagh

2000: Michael Almereyda

2000: Campbell Scott, Eric Simonson

2002: Peter Brook

2003: Michael Mundell

2007: Alexander Fodor

2009: Simon Bowler

2009: Gregory Doran

2011: Bruce Ramsay

2014: Adam Hall

2015: Sarah Frankcom, Margaret Williams

2015: Dick Douglass, Obie Dean

2016: Jennifer Nicole Stang

2016: Simon Godwin

2016: Antoni Cimolino and Shelagh O’Brien

2018: Federay Holmes, Elle White

2018: Robert Icke, Rhodri Huw, Ilinca Radulian


Adaptations

1992: Natalya Orlova, Dave Edwards (animated)

2004: Hamlet (opera, Ambroise Thomas)


Production drama

2003: Slings and Arrows (Season 1)


Educational

1990: Discovering Hamlet

2010: This is Hamlet

2013: Shakespeare Uncovered (Season 1, Ep. 6)


Related

1990: Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead

1994: Royal Deceit

2008: Hamlet 2

2014: Hamlet A.D.D.

2017: Ophelia (short)

2018: Ophelia


Hamlet
2002: Peter Brook

Peter Brook, once the enfant terrible of the London theater, is still, in his advanced years, a bit of a maverick. He has produced the apparently unproducable (e.g., the Mahabharata), and never fails to bring forth something interesting. This version of Hamlet is no exception: it’s remarkably interesting. Whether it’s Hamlet any longer is another question.

Brook is well aware of the fact that cinema allows a different kind of diction, and different visual modes of disclosure, from those available to the actor on stage. He clearly is trying to exploit those options here. I’m not convinced, however, that he has respected the internal rational dynamics of the play adequately in doing so. He has significantly cut and also rather randomly rearranged the script from one end to the other. What remains is a spare but somewhat fractured image of the play, incapable of conveying the central core of the play as it was written.

The title role is handled with severe and reserved grace by Adrian Lester, whom one may have seen in Primary Colors, Branagh’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, or a number of other things. He is an excellent actor with a remarkable range; his delivery is thoughtful and subtle, and (within the limits placed upon him by the direction and the abridgement of the script) he does a superior job. For anyone digging into the portrayal of the role, his version is worth attention.

I find it hard to recommend this play to the newcomer: it’s perhaps interesting for those who already know the play well, or those who want to pick out isolated bits of performance. It remains a good mine for fragments of genius — but for all that, it’s not quite Hamlet as a whole any more.


Claudius: Jeffery Kissoon

First Player: Yoshi Oida

Gertrude: Natasha Parry

Ghost: Jeffery Kissoon

Gravedigger: Bruce Myers

Guildenstern: Rohan Siva

Hamlet: Adrian Lester

Horatio: Scott Handy

Laertes: Rohan Siva

Ophelia: Shantala Shivalingappa

Osric: Antonin Stahly-Vishwanadan

Polonius: Bruce Myers

Priest: Nicolas Gaster

Queen: Natasha Parry

Rosencrantz: Asil Raïs

Second Player: Akram Khan

Servant: Jérôme Grillon