 | | Director, Rupert Goold |
The Royal wanted a big significant show before closing for a 14-month-long redevelopment. You can't get much bigger than Hamlet - one of the most famous plays of all time. This 'significant moment' for the Royal has been in preparation for two years. Director Rupert Goold thinks it's an ideal choice: "The play is about theatre and acting and, in a sentimental way, that's somehow appropriate for the last show." Rupert is clever at catching the eye of the national theatre critics. During his stint as artistic director at the Royal , dozens of London scribes have, blinking, left the capital's bright lights to head northwards to the new cultural Mecca of Northampton. Rupert Goold's productions of Paradise Lost, Arcadia, Othello and Summer Lightning have gone down a storm. "I think we've earnt the right to do Hamlet after the classical work we've been doing over the last couple of years," says Rupert. "I feel that we've got the reputation now." Sex kitten
 | | Jane Birkin in 1971 - famous for the song Je Taime |
Guaranteed to get the critics salivating is his casting of '70s French sex kitten Jane Birkin as Hamlet's mum, Gertrude. "Jane is a sort of mythical creature to me," says Rupert. "Everybody is obsessed with Gertrude, particularly Claudius, Hamlet and the ghost, and you need the kind of woman who people will obsess about. Jane is certainly that!" A relative unknown plays the lead role. But Tobias Menzies is in a ideal choice according to his director: "He's not a household name for people even though he's considered one of the best classical actors of his generation, but he's a brilliant actor." We last saw him at the Royal in the Tom Stoppard play Arcadia. Distressing Another ploy designed to get tongues wagging is the set. Designer Laura Hopkins will transform the theatre. Rupert says the action takes place in a rotten and decaying state "and as our theatre is in need of refurbishment, there'll be a 'distressing' going on….We'll be giving the theatre a kind of 'Miss Havisham' quality." He adds cryptically "We're going to do something that undermines the proscenium arch - you'll feel you're in a different kind of space." There are high hopes for a truly memorable last show at the Royal but Rupert Goold is hedging his bets, especially as Hamlet is such a famous play and critics notoriously disagree about how it should be performed. "However perfectly you realise what you want to do with the play," he says, "some people won't want it done that way. Maybe that's liberating because you're not doing it for the critics - you're doing it for yourself and the public." Listen to the full interview with Rupert Goold by clicking on the link on the top right of this page. | 
