Hamlet review, National Theatre – uneven but with a decisive fresh take on every character

Hamlet is typically seen as the epitome of a serious play: visualise it on stage and you’re probably imagining a sober black-clad prince, clutching a skull and brooding miserably on his own mortality after his father’s death. But in Robert Hastie’s refreshing National Theatre production, death is a laughing matter. As Hamlet, Hiran Abeysekera (who won plaudits in Life of Pi) is a nihilistic, awkward clown who mimes shooting himself in the skull during his famous opening soliliquy. The court around him is just as larky too, interrupting state business with hearty singsongs. It’s a compelling reading of Shakespeare’s play, even if it loses its way when its deathtoll climbs.

The biggest strength of Hastie’s production is the way he has a decisive, original take on every single character in this story. Usually, Hamlet’s lover Ophelia is delicate and tragic, an accident waiting to happen. But here, the hilarious Francesca Mills (an actor born with dwarfism) fills her with punky, outspoken life. She seems to clasp her chest during an uncomfortably intimate discussion about her “maiden treasure” – then her hands move down to her hips, and she jumps. She’s doing the macarena. If she eventually loses her wits, it’s because this twisted court deliberately steals them from her.

Geoffrey Streatfeild is another highlight as court advisor Polonius, delivering his famous speech of advice (“neither a borrower nor a lender be”) with the sweaty-palmed awkwardness of a businessman trying to address misdemeanours at a company meeting. And Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz (Hari Mackinnon) and Guildenstern (Joe Bolland) are wittily drawn, thoroughly weird poshos with slick platinum-blond ducktails, constantly baffled by the social rules of this jocular environment.

Amidst all these oddballs, Abeysekera’s Hamlet doesn’t necessarily feel like an outsider. He takes his soliliquies at a clip, and this speedy pacing banishes the play’s usual sense that he’s standing meditatively on the edge of this world. Instead, he’s got a wiry, wild-eyed quality that makes his gradually-emerging madness feel completely plausible: he whines like a blood-crazed mosquito as he tries to evade capture by the court’s saner members.

We’re in a lavishly drawn, modern-day court here, gorgeously rendered by Ben Stone’s palatial set design with its wall paintings of Danish woodlands and battle scenes, and by elaborately-laid banqueting tables that slide slickly away in the hands of attendants. This naturalistic present-day setting, combined with larky performances, gives some scenes extra emotional punch. Polonius’s death and funeral land heavily, especially when they’re disrupted by an ugly graveside brawl.

Disappointingly, this play’s final act doesn’t have the same emotional punch. Without the first half’s big characters, it loses its energy: Hamlet’s mother Gertrude (Ayesha Dharker) and step-father Claudius (Alistair Petrie) are understated presences here. And Hastie doesn’t have an especially convincing way of modernising its elaborate endgame of double-crossing and poison-based misunderstandings.

Still, it does feel fitting that this Hamlet’s catharsis should come through laughter, not through mass murder. It creates a posh, slick, morally bankrupt vision of a court that takes nothing seriously, until they’re forced to. And in a theatre climate where showy, weighty revivals of Shakespeare with big stars and massive concepts are the norm, it’s a reminder that a lighter touch can be powerful, too.

On at the National Theatre until 22 November; tickets here