Hamlet

Hamlet is THE role for a young(ish) actor and so it is inevitable that it goes to the big stars. Next summer, Jude Law will be performing his at the Donmar, and tonight, of course, was supposed to be David Tennant's night. Now I cede to nobody in my admiration of David Tennant, but believe me when I say that I could not have enjoyed tonight's Hamlet more if his back had allowed him to take that lead. I could have enjoyed it as much, perhaps, and in a different way - but not more.

David Tennant is a brilliant, charismatic, lead actor, and his Hamlet I'm certain would have been that of a virtuoso, exceptionally performed and wonderfully entertaining. But I don't think it could possibly have been as heartbreaking as Edward Bennett's. What, for me, made Bennett's performance so magical is that he is not the star. He had not been chosen for his brilliance and charisma. He is, like Hamlet, a man trapped in a story that is much bigger than he is - the understudy thrown into the limelight. What, in sum, made Bennett's Hamlet so special for me was that in many ways he is quite ordinary.

His Hamlet is unprincely, even slightly nerdy. At the start of the play I would go so far as to describe him as goofy. He does not shine brightest on the stage - that honour goes to Patrick Stewart's masterful Claudius, whose power to inspire both love and loathing is made all the more potent by the way his stage presence outshines that of his rather more average nephew. Circumstance has thrown Bennett's Hamlet into a situation which he cannot handle, try as he might. It is too big for him. He is intelligent, he is resourceful, he becomes ruthless, but it isn't enough, because Fate has all the cards. He is a normal person woefully unprepared to do what he is called upon to do. No wonder his self-doubt rings out through all those soliloquies. How can an average bloke decide whether to be or not to be? The sight of an unremarkable man driven to the great heights - and depths - taking on such an immense force, was gripping in a way that I have never experienced Shakespeare to be.

And so, at the end, when Fate plays out its hand bringing Hamlet down and the rest of the court around him, it is heartbreaking. Great heroes are meant to die great deaths. But Bennett's Hamlet is not a great hero, he is one of us, doing his best - and it is not enough. As he dies, surrounded by destruction, he reverts to the decent, flawed person he was all along. It is devastating.

To be clear, there is nothing ordinary about Bennett's acting - he is incredibly skilled. But he is a character actor, not a star, and to see Hamlet performed as a character rather than a star turn was something special, and probably unique to these circumstances.

Praise must also go to the rest of this production, particularly Penny Downie, bringing astonishing emotional complexity to Gertrude, Oliver Ford Davies as a sweet, sad Polonius, and Patrick Stewart, aforementioned, as a surprisingly sympathetic Claudius. The directing by Gregory Doran was exceptional and the production design by Robert Jones wonderfully effective in its simplicity.

All in all, magnificent.