A sort of theatre related Ben Whishaw post
02/09/2010
Just wanted to share my excitement with my fellow Mr W fans. It's not quite like getting a programme signed by the man himself, far from it. But with him away in LA filming All Signs of Death so no prospect of spotting him on the streets of London or seeing him at the theatre or even on stage, it fills a void and will soon be the newest addition to my wall adornments:
It's a flyer from his Hamlet stint in 2004 which I was lucky enough to get to see a recording of back in May.
The back looks like this:
Incidentally I'm in the process of reading the First Quarto (1603) of Hamlet and it confirms my prejudice that Hamlet always feels younger than his age is perceived in the Gravedigger scene of the later folio. In the explanation of the cast list in this Arden edition it says:
The hero is apparently a younger character in Q1 than in Q2/f, since Scene 16 the Gravedigger tells us that Yorick's skull has been in the ground 'this dozen year' rather than 'three and twenty years' and omits the reference to Hamlet having been born 30 years ago; the implication is that he is now about 18. In addition to the stress on his youth in scenes 3 and 5 , in the closet scene Corambis refers to him as 'young Hamlet' and the Queen addresses him as 'boy'.
I want to see the Ben Whishaw Hamlet again now to see whether they substituted the Q1 Gravedigger lines for those used in the more popular later folios.