For the two hours without interval, the groundlings will stand as the crowd being swayed by the political speeches of Brutus (Ben Whishaw) and Mark Antony (David Morrissey) or as the inhabitants of the battle scenes at Philippi.
Ben Whishaw plays John, the ultimate ambivalent man who mostly lives happily in a homosexual relationship with M (Andrew Scott) until he accidentally meets and has sex with a woman, W (Katherine Parkinson). From then on John vacillates between staying with the man and leaving to be with the woman.
This is Sir Trevor Nunn's first Hamlet in thirty years and the publicity machine leapt into action to emphasis the youth of his cast, actors who are, or have just been students, playing Hamlet and his contemporaries, also students. It is of course a tremendous risk to take with Shakespeare's greatest tragedy to entrust the huge and demanding role of the Prince of Denmark to Ben Whishaw who is only 23 and barely out of RADA.