“I thought it was dystopian!”
“I thought it was modern?”
“I thought it was the past…”
The Millennials are confused, and understandably so. The Barbican Centre’s production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, directed by Lyndsey Turner and filmed before a live audience, presents a unique and refreshing perspective on the 400-year-old play. It is not the medieval Danish world of Shakespeare’s setting, and nor does it sit well within any of the centuries that have occurred since then. The buildings are Victorian, the uniforms modern, the clothing contemporary, but the weapons historic. Hamlet has traded in his doublet for a David Bowie shirt, but keeps a dagger by his side and listens to Nat King Cole albums on an old record player. And just wait until you see Horatio.