“Hamlet” is described as a play of shocks and surprises, packed with incident, poetry and character. Hamlet, Gielgud adduces, is put in an impossible predicament and heads this way to an appointed fate. To many, Hamlet is an undecisive character crippled with grief, but, to Gielgud, he is a forlorn figure, shaken to the core, abandoned by and surrounded by false friends as well as chased by a constant longing for being emotionally corresponded. Horatio, always a good friend, does not offer him much support and Hamlet only succeeds in his reaching out with the gravedigger and the player King. He moves from misery to horror.
Gretrude, Hamlet’s mother, is portrayed as a shallow woman that must have some good in her but who is weak and has gone wrong...
To listen to this and more...do not miss out Gielgud’s views on Hamlet....
