Playing the Prince

Specials

Specials

Hamlet is the Shakespearean character that many actors long to play. Jade Anouka is one of those actors. She talks to past Hamlets- Sir Derek Jacobi, Adrian Lester, Samuel West and Tessa Parr - about the challenges in approaching the part. And she hears the fabled story of The Red Book, a red-bound copy of the play, begun by the actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robinson, who passed the book on to a successive actor on the condition that in turn they passed it onto the finest Hamlet of the next generation. Derek Jacobi tells the story of receiving it from Peter O'Toole and passing it on to Kenneth Branagh, who in turn passed it on to Tom Hiddleston. Jade wonders where the book might go next. Jade also explores why Hamlet as a part holds such fascination for actors. Here's the rub - no one can tell you what Hamlet is about. A revenge tragedy, an Oedipal drama, a political betrayal, a study of insanity, the portrait of a fatally flawed genius.