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Hamlet is the Shakespearean character that many actors long to play. Jade Anouka is one of those actors. She talks to past Hamlets– Sir Derek Jacobi, Adrian Lester, Samuel West and Tessa Parr – about the challenges in approaching the part.

And she hears the fabled story of The Red Book, a red-bound copy of the play, begun by the actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robinson, who passed the book on to a successive actor on the condition that in turn they passed it onto the finest Hamlet of the next generation. Derek Jacobi tells the story of receiving it from Peter O’Toole and passing it on to Kenneth Branagh, who in turn passed it on to Tom Hiddleston. Jade wonders where the book might go next.

Jade also explores why Hamlet as a part holds such fascination for actors. Here’s the rub - no one can tell you what Hamlet is about. A revenge tragedy, an Oedipal drama, a political betrayal, a study of insanity, the portrait of a fatally flawed genius. Each actor makes it his own but has to deal with the weight of its history.

Derek Jacobi tells the story of performing ‘To be or not to be’ only to hear the voice of Sir Winston Churchill joining in from the front row. Adrian Lester describes how he whispered each famous speech to himself in an attempt to get back to the essence of the language.

And each generation interprets Hamlet as an expression of their own time. Professor Michael Dobson from the Shakespeare Institute describes a production he saw in Ukraine in a cellar now used as a bomb shelter.

Readers: Sir Derek Jacobi, Adrian Lester, Samuel West, Tessa Parr
Producer: Sara Conkey
A True Thought production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4

Acknowledgements: Hamlet Â鶹ԼÅÄ2 26th December 2009 Director - Gregory Doran Royal Shakespeare Company Production Hamlet – David Tennant Composer: Paul Englishby

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President Zelensky address to Parliament Â鶹ԼÅÄ Parliament Tuesday 8th March 2022

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