BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'S HAMLET

Read here a review of Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Hamlet which is now at the Barbican until 31 October 2015. The production is sold out, but 30 £10 day tickets are made available to buy in person to every performance.

Flitting across the stage with an athletic intensity, he is walking in the footsteps of the greats; among them Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, Kenneth Branagh and most recently, David Tennant. 

Although Benedict Cumberbatch is best known for his film and television roles, he undoubtedly knows classical theatre. He first performed in Shakespearean plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream early in his career. He has appeared in films such as Atonement, Amazing Grace and  Star Trek Into Darkness, and was the star of the TV series Sherlock, receiving three Emmy award nominations for the role. For The Imitation Game, about  British cryptographer  Alan Turing during the Second World War, he received an Oscar nomination.

According to Henry Hitchings, the theatre critic on the London Evening Standard, Benedict Cumberbatch is "a charismatic Hamlet, energetic but also pensive."