Jacey Bedford's Journal

Just got back home from seeing Hamlet in Stratford with David Tennant as Hamlet; Patrick Stewart at Claudius; John Woodvine as The Player King and Prince Charles as Member of Audience. The Charlie bit was both unexpected and very low key. No disturbance at all and if the girlie in the restaurant hadn't told us he was going to be there we might not have noticed. There were a couple of suits lurking outside but because the RSC is in the middle of being rebuilt the current performances are in the much smaller Courtyard Theatre, so no royal box - he just sat on the front row of the circle with the plebs.

The play was FANTASTIC - but then you'd expect that wouldn't you? Done in modern dress Patrick Stewart was a suitably smooth, elegant and plausible Claudius to Penny Downie's perfectly measured (and beautiful) Gertrude. I love Patrick Stewart - he certainly adds gravitas, but this was David Tennant's play. Gods, that man's got energy! I forget how many times I've seen Hamlet, now, but I've seen Robert Powell in the part and Robert Lindsay (both exceedingly good) and though it's hard to compare a performance seen a few hours ago with one seen thirty years ago and another seen fifteen years ago I'd say Tennant was a standout. The fight scenes, particularly the big swordfight at the end, were spectacularly good,

Special mention to Peter de Jersey who made a truly likeable Horatio

I hadn't realised the RSC was undergoing reconstruction, so I thought this was in the main house but they've knocked that down and are completely rebuilding, so the much smaller Courtyard Theatre is the RSC's new home in Stratford for the duration. It's a thrust stage and though we bought tickets way back last February we were struggling to get seats and ended up right on the side but quite close to the stage. Actually very decent seats! Though we saw everything from not quite the best angle we did get closeups.

It's interesting to see what the new RSC will be like. I look forward to it. In the mid 1990s I played the Swan - the smaller RSC stage - with Artisan in a short run of a play called Comforters and Candlelight, but we didn't get to see much of what went on in the main house, other than getting to stand on the stage, briefly. In fact it was a bit scary because backstage was like a warren and one wrong turn and you felt you might be in King Lear by accident. Oops!

Every time I go to the theatre I kick myself for letting many theatre-going opportunities slide past. I love it and I should make an effort to go more often.