Hamlet review: Paapa Essiedu confirms he's a singular theatrical talent

1/8
Fiona Mountford9 March 2018

It is pleasing to watch the august Royal Shakespeare Company move away from its Stratford upon Avon/ Barbican strongholds and strike out. This is exactly the right production to take into the wider world, a vibrant vision of Elsinore as a modern-dress African country anchored by a towering titular performance. Rising star Paapa Essiedu is in the ascendant and then some: familiar from his fine recent television work in Kiri, here he confirms what a singular theatrical talent he is.

The Hackney Empire is notably wide, and tall, but Essiedu commands it absolutely each time he stands by himself front stage. For the soliloquies he marries an easy conversational tone with an assured grip on the verse speaking and his astonishingly expressive eyes move to include audience members seated on all levels.

Those eyes light up with understanding and intimacy and then fade to instant dullness when the moment of openness passes, which it does increasingly in a world where trust is all too easily betrayed. It’s some of the most vivid acting I have witnessed in a long time; I’d love to see him paired with the equally luminous Carey Mulligan.

Simon Godwin’s robust and colourful production, which starts with a tableau of Hamlet’s graduation from Wittenberg University, has matured impressively since its 2016 Stratford premiere. This African Elsinore, hung with brightly coloured fabrics and large canvases of disturbing neon graffiti that Hamlet himself has created, buzzes to the insistent beat of drumming.

There’s superb work from Joseph Mydell as that officious windbag Polonius and Mimi Ndiweni pulls off the almost impossible task of making Ophelia’s grief-driven madness appear plausible. R S See, for sure.

Until March 31

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