This film screened 22nd June 2016.

Sir Tom Stoppard has often exhibited a playful, subversive approach to the Bard; he co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998), and has written for the stage Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, this adaptation of which represents his sole credit as film director.

Minor characters in Hamlet, the film places the two at its centre as they wander in and out of events at Elsinore, seemingly unaware of their roles in the larger drama as they muse on their own concerns. Irreverent and witty, it’s an ingenious take on the original play.

(Notes by Kevin Coyne.)

This film is screening as part of our Shakespeare Lives season June 8th – 30th.