Let's make no bones about it: the primary reason to watch this BBC studio version of Hamlet, part of a monumental series in which all of Shakespeare's dramatic oeuvre was recorded for screen, is Derek Jacobi's performance in the title role. It's brilliant and piercingly human, it's worth the price of admission, and on its own makes this Hamlet something that should last. In addition, though, it is an all-over commendable performance of the full text of the play -- a rare element for which it is the more commendable.
The minimalist sets -- basic dressings of a castle and pastel voids outdoors -- are inexpensive, but also draw, clean, bleak lines that draw out the essentials of the performances. Costumes are basically traditional and competent, as is the Dudley Simpson music, which only occasionally is a little too overbearing or notably reminiscent of the composer's Doctor Who scores.
Speaking of Doctor Who, a regular from that series at the time, Lalla Ward, plays Ophelia. She has a kind of impish charm that served her very well in the science fiction series but here it is unevenly mixed with a stiffness that her performance as Ophelia less effective than it could have been. Patrick Stewart, however, is very good as a calculating Claudius who is smoothly duplicitous in public yet tautly pained by his sins in private. Eric Porter's Polonius is extremely likable and believable -- doddery but still reasonable.
But in the end, it is mostly dressing to Derek Jacobi. He is a wonderfully expressive Hamlet, clearly a man of sardonic, world-weary wit and intellectual genius -- who insouciantly demonstrates that he knows he wiser than all those around him -- who yet is ruled by extraordinarily powerful emotions that he cannot govern. He as vast magnetism and presence and makes the role a complex, believable man who is the epitome of "passion's slave." His confrontation with Ophelia, played with the strong choice that he is just beginning to realize that he is becoming mad in spite -- or perhaps because -- of his false madness and has truly been tortured by Ophelia's coldness, is especially heartwrenching.
This production is nowhere less than competent and in many places -- due to the great performance of its lead and strong support from many other -- is unforgettable.
