Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. (O.U.D.S., Oxford Playhouse.) PERSONALLY, I am
all in favour of a Madariagan reading of the principal part, and this is what, in a remarkably workmanlike production—which suddenly faltered and collapsed right at the end—Mr. Nevill Coghill and Mr. David Williams gave us. But the trouble about what may be vulgarly called the Errol Flynn Hamlet—the Renaissance prince, dashing, incisive and dominant, not moping and abstracted in the Victorian tradition—is that, unless he is played by an actor (like for instance Mr. Redgrave) of great talent and experience, it becomes harder than ever to understand the play. Mr. Williams showed us, with skill and lucidity, a ruthless oppor- tunist, but was much less successful in explaining why Hamlet failed to take his opportunities. He got pretty annoyed with himself at times for not killing the King and the character he had established was so positive and so largely extrovert that one could never quite make out why, in such a mood, he did not go off and do the job. But it was a good and remarkably mature performance, with many, excellent touches.
The King is always the chief beneficiary when the producer makes, as here, the minimum of cuts in the text, and Mr. Arthur Ashby played him admirably. Miss Judith Stott, unlike most Ophelias, was better sane than mad ; Mr. David Henschel made a highly effective intervention as the Player King, and the general level of histrionic competence was high. The sword-play altogether lacked that touch of the berserk which one expects from under- graduates, but otherwise the production (which I saw on the last night) was smoother and more orderly than those which I can dimly remember in the distant past. None of the scenery fell down, none of the actors dried up, got his sword stuck in his scabbard or set fire to somebody else's wig with a torch. It is, I am sure, better so ; and it was wrong of me to feel ever so slightly disappointed.
PETER FLEMING.
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