Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet

On Thursday 15th October, my mother, father, I, and 225,000 other people watched the National Theatre Live's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. And it was bloody brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet was outstandingly compelling, and engrossing, and stirring, and left me with my heart in my hands. I am no experienced Shakespearean drama critic, in fact I hold my hands up and admit that I am a complete armature of his works, and even struggled my way through the GCSE content for Shakespeare. So I am defiantly not with the likes of the guy behind me who made some very middle-classed comments on the chronological inaccuracy compared to the core literary text. Stuff that guy. It was magical, and beautiful, and yes, there were lines which went over my head, and the odd joke what passed me by; but when Hamlet was there in front of my eyes, I was with him for every tear and smile and cry. I felt his pain and loss and joy as if it were my own: I was in his story, and every bead of sweet off that man's body, all his effort and grit and determination, was not lost on me for one second. I felt so alive in seeing someone else live. And that, dear reader, is the magic of theater. There was a moment during the performance when I sat back and I realised that 225,000 people are all hanging off the words of this one actor, all at the …show more content…
Sian Brooke's Orphelia seemed somewhat lacking in substance and integrity in comparison to Benedict's overwhelming conviction to his character. As a member of the audience, I felt that every word that that man said has meaning and thought. The emphasis, or lack-thereof, on each individual word and phrase had been carefully crafted to create a convincing, and real, Hamlet. So with such an illuminated centre, it was unfortunate, but inevitably, that others would appear somewhat dim in