The play’s the thing, Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
With: Michael Maloney as Joe Harper (Hamlet), a depressed actor, producer and director the show.
Richard Briers as Henry Wakefield (Claudius, the Ghost, and the Player King),a long-suffering and cynical old Englishman with a sharp tongue and a list of prejudices five miles long.
Hetta Charnley as Molly Harper, Joe’s sister and assistant during the production.
Joan Collins as Margaretta D’Arcy, Joe’s agent.
Nicholas Farrell as Tom Newman (Laertes, Fortinbras, and messengers),a vain, self-centered pain in the ass.
Mark Hadfield as Vernon Spatch (Polonius, Marcellus, and First Gravedigger),
Gerard Horan as Carnforth Greville/Keith Branch (Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Horatio, and Barnardo), an alcoholic in denial who can not remember lines.
Celia Imrie as Fadge,set and costume designer,
a new-age kook.
Jennifer Saunders as Nancy Crawford,a Hollywood producer.
Julia Sawalha as Nina Raymond(Ophelia), an airhead.
John Sessions as Terry Du Bois (Queen Gertrude), a flamboyant gay with a secret.
Okay, let’s get something straight right off the bat. Two things: One, this movie is in B&W. If that is too much for your color-imprinted comic-book mind, bail now. I think in color but write in B&W so you will not like it. (Like I care.) Item Two, the direction reminds me of Woody Allen’s work. If you are one of those drones who whine that Woody Allen films are always about disaffected Manhattan intellectuals, despite all the Woody Allen films that prove the contrary, further proving you have not seen any of his films in several decades, do yourself a favor and stop reading right now, because you are a moron. I mean it, select one of the other pieces on this site, like about the gross insult blood libel of Forrest Gump, the candy corn conspiracy, Holiday for Selected Half-Wits, or how Katy Winters died of frozen armpits: the Deep State cover-up.
Still with me? Good for you. You will not regret it. I am not like those others; you know, the low brow types. Guys (and gals!) like us have to stick together.
This movie is about a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which clocks in at four hours, full text. But you, you have caught a break here, so no bitching. The movie is only 98 minutes! Some yegs get all the breaks. Don’t bother to thank me, I am just a reviewer. Nah, that ain’t right. I am more than a reviewer, but less than a critic. Mine are comments, so I am the commenter.
Now, Noel Coward asks the Big Question:
Why must the show go on?
It can’t be all that indispensable,
To me, it really isn’t sensible.
Yeah, well, I’m not an actor. How would I know? However, unlike all those others, I can’t guess.
This movie is about some English actors who are truly dedicated to their craft (unlike most American actors who are to dedicated become movie stars, or worse, sitcom stars) who bond together like family to achieve a common goal: to stage a production of Hamlet in an old church on Christmas Eve for an audience of Shakespeare deprived residents of Hope, Derbyshire, home of Hope Cement Works. I do to.
Nothing says Holiday Cheer like the Prince of Denmark.
Writer Branagh has provided his players with the witty dialogue they deserve. The play is staged with the feet of the audience, like it must have been for the groundlings at the Globe Theater (before it burned down, of course. The conflagration, no doubt caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette butt). As is common in the theater, a single actor can play several parts.
“All the world’s a stage,
“And all the men and women merely players.”
Director Branagh is not afraid of setting the shot like Woody Allen or Orson Welles and allowing the cinematographer and actors do their work, without the frantic cutting seen with insecure directors, popular as they may be.
All in all it is a charming and entertaining film well worth the investment of 98 minutes of your time.
Oh, and thanks for reading.
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