Sadler’s Wells East, London
Ben Duke’s clever, witty and wholly unpredictable new show, The Last Hamlet, takes big liberties with the story that pay off
Hamlet is trying to get a hire car. He has missed his dad’s funeral because he was at a silent retreat, dealing with his abandonment issues and the disturbing memory of a year 7 disco when his uncle and mum danced together to Yazoo’s Only You.
There have been many takes on the troubled Prince of Denmark, but performer/director Ben Duke, co-founder of Lost Dog, has a talent for fresh readings. If Duke has a shtick – which after similar reworkings of Paradise Lost, Romeo and Juliet and the Medea myth, you could argue he does – it is to turn old texts inside out and douse them in contemporary references, surreal swerves and witty one-liners. A formula of sorts, but one that’s wholly unpredictable.