Cross dressed Hamlet

A week or so ago to see a cross dressed Hamlet, held over from the first summer of the plague: tickets bought in June 2019 for August 2020. Don't usually book things that far in advance, but I got sent an advertisement, tickets were on sale and I must have thought it best to book while the going was good. With Cush Jumbo - best known to us for a supporting role in Vera - playing Hamlet. As it turned out, playing Hamlet as a prince, rather than as a princess.

So, train to Waterloo to open proceedings with a picnic on Waterloo Millennium Green, fairly quiet on this occasion. Including some art you could sit on and something called a rain garden, where we actually sat. A pleasant spot it was too.

The green is operated by the Bankside Open Spaces Trust, to be found at reference 3. Where I am told that there is a rain garden and that the idea is to get heavy rain into the ground, diverting it away from storm drains. While at reference 4 you are told a bit more about how this is done.

We thought that, had one some small boys in charge, they could be tasked with finding as many different kinds of beer bottle tops as they could manage. We managed half a dozen in the immediate vicinity of our picnic, so maybe a couple of dozen if you worked at it?

And at some point we scored the fake noticed at reference 2.

And so onto a busy Young Vic, with a fair bit of plague management in place - with the result that just one man of middle years declined to wear a mask in the auditorium, say three quarters full if you included upstairs. A much better result than the Wigmore Hall manage.

In the bar area outside the auditorium a hen party was getting under way, by the looks of it a hen party on the occasion of the wedding of one of the hens. We also had a lone cock, but a correspondent explained to me afterwards that these days it is quite normal and natural for gay friends of a bridal pair to chose whether they wanted to be stags or hens. This cock went as far as sporting the sash, but was otherwise in civvies, certainly not dress up in the way that the girls were.

I liked the set, not much more than three blocks, maybe four feet by three feet by eight feet high. Fairly limited movement but there were lighting effects. The snap above, the gravedigger scene, lifted from the Young Vic website, gives something of the idea. And while I think of it, the closing Fortinbras scene vanished the day we were there. Perhaps running time was a problem - but at least I have learned from the interesting editor's note provided in the programme that Hamlet is the longest play in the canon.

A modern dress production, but not one that particularly irritated on that account. But I don't like large plastic machine guns and I don't like duel scenes with daggers. Sword fighting was a serious business for gentlemen at the time the play was written: playwriters might get stabbed in brawls in taverns, but gentlemen learned to fight properly, with rapiers.

Some inappropriate tittering from the audience, who perhaps did not understand, for example, that dying at prayer got you a free pass to heaven, an important matter for someone with serious stuff on his charge sheet. From where I associate to the Carolingian noble practise of getting baptised very late in life: such an important & cleansing sacrament was not one to be wasted.

I thought the casting, which included a lot of people of colour, was rather mixed.

Adrian Dunbar, known to us from ITV3, possibly from his 1992 appearance in Morse (which we watched many years later), was a plausible king - but he was not a plausible murderous adulterer. Nor did he fit in very well with the rest of the cast.

Taz Skylar was irritating as Marcellus and Rosencrantz. While Guildenstern was cast as a girl, Joanna Borja, who was not much better. Entertaining enough in herself, but not in this role. The various attempts to translate scenes involving young people into the argot and behaviour of young people today did not work for me. Furthermore, I have long thought that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get a rather rough deal: it wasn't their fault that they were carrying a sealed order for Hamlet's execution. But then, perhaps it was still the practise to shoot the messenger in Elizabethan times.

Norah Holden was good as Ophelia - and her grief scene was terrific.

Joseph Marcell was good as Polonius.

While Cush Jumbo had her moments as Hamlet.

So, all in all, an interesting production. We were glad to have been. Will I be back for more? That is to say another three hour slug.

We settled on Earlsfield for eating. The Half Way House was far too busy with what appeared to be boisterous young men. Perhaps there had been sport on the box. Denied entry at the former public house now called 'Open Page' despite there appearing to be lots of empty tables. Which meant that we wound up across the road at 'Chichetti and Wine' where, as it turned out, we did very well. Even though it does not appear to run to a website, not even a page on Facebook.

Olives and goat's cheese to start. Followed by ravioli for her, followed by gnocci followed by ravioli for him. Served on some of those white enamel plates with blue trim - stuff which seems to have got everywhere in the last few years. Plus some white wine, to be found at reference 5, plus some grappa. Zonin looks, from the website, to be a big operation, all over Italy, but I do not recall coming across them before.

Quite a decent tiramisu, served in a jam jar, perhaps the second time such a thing has happened to us - with the first occasion being noticed at reference 6. It was just as well that BH was game to help as I would have found it a bit much single handed.

The place was quite busy, this being early evening on a Saturday, with quite a mix of people, including some families with young children. One, with very cute young child very near us, so we got talking and learned about the delights of trying to make ends meet in Earlsfield, where a terraced house with a small garden appears to fetch much the same as our rather larger house with a much larger garden in Epsom. So beyond the reach of most young families, who settle for half a house in consequence.

All in all, an excellent meal, very reasonably priced.

PS: we must have been to quite a few Hamlets over the years, although search of the blog does not reveal that many. With the one which sprang to mind first being the two man show at the Oval, noticed at reference 8. And then we own three or four film versions. Perhaps the next stop is the Branagh one - sold as the only full text version - a concept made rather difficult by the editor's note already referred to.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cush_Jumbo. Born, as it happens, on the very hospital complex where FIL trained after the second world war.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/fake-131.html.

Reference 3: https://www.bost.org.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.wwt.org.uk/discover-wetlands/gardening-for-wetlands/how-to-make-a-rain-garden/#.

Reference 5: https://www.zonin.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://www.zonin.co.uk/wine/lugana-doc-zonin/. 'Immediately after picking the grapes are destemmed and undergo soft pressing. The clear must is left to ferment for ten days at a controlled 18°C in order to exalt its primary aromas and organoleptic qualities. The wine stays in contact with its own yeast for at least three months'.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/buckfast-abbey-with-inn.html.

Reference 8: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/replication.html.