Coming Soon: New Shakespeare Critic Podcast

The Shakespeare Critic Podcast will begin with a series about Hamlet on film, focusing on the less well known films and sometimes the female characters. The first episode will be an exploration of the latest Hamlet film (as of September 2024). This is Hollywood star and famous Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen’s age-blind Hamlet, where “young Hamlet” is played by McKellen at the age of eighty-two. This is the second time that he has played the role, the first in 1971. Many of the critics weren’t keen on that performance. Can he do better fifty years later? Should some Hamlet actors be older than Joe Biden?

Coming up after that is a deep-dive episode looking at the ways that Hamlet’s women are portrayed on film. How far does performing Shakespeare’s characters involve filling in the imaginative spaces left between the lines of his texts? Do Hamlet’s women need to have imaginative interpretations to avoid sinking without trace (sorry, Ophelia)? Is it even possible to attempt a strictly faithful version of the characters? Looking at extreme adaptations, (seemingly) more traditional variations, and even a Czech musical, I’ll talk about the ways that big-C ‘Character’ is interpreted and performed in modern Shakespeare productions.

After that, possibly a short-snap on the ways that poor old Yorick’s skull has been used, imagined and performed in filmed productions, in one case very literally by a deceased Shakespeare fan. But that’s for later. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.