Hamlet starring Cush Jumbo at the Young Vic – review round-up

Hamlet – A dazzling Dane

Female actors as Hamlet is nothing new any more. In recent years, Maxine Peake, Michelle Terry and Ruth Negga have all played the part. Jumbo was announced in the role over two years ago. Has that preparation time proved productive for her?

Almost every reviewer agrees that it has – and that her performance is the best thing about the entire show. She is “exceptional” according to Arifa Akbar (Guardian, ★★★★), “electrifying” according to Gwendolyn Smith (iNews, ★★★★) and “ranks among the finest Hamlets” Nick Curtis (Evening Standard, ★★★★) has ever seen.

“Shorn-skulled and clad in 1990s dad jeans and a bomber jacket, she’s a pleasure to watch, nimble and impish, combining dry wit with amphetamine energy,” writes Natasha Tripney (The Stage, ★★★), while Dominic Cavendish (Telegraph, ★★★) likens her to “a lean, mean fighting machine” and Marianka Swain (LondonTheatre, ★★★) calls her “a biting, street-smart Hamlet… teetering on the edge of violence.”

On the question of gender – the script’s pronouns remain unchanged as he/him – most critics barely bat an eyelid. “You never question her right to be playing the part or ask why she is there,” says Sarah Crompton (WhatsOnStage, ★★★), while David Benedict (Variety) writes that “he is so utterly convincing as the character, her gender instantly becomes irrelevant”. For Clive Davis (Times, ★★★), she is “a non-binary Hamlet for our times”.
Only Andrzej Lukowski (Time Out, ★★★) has reservations. According to him, Jumbo has a “livewire menace” but her Hamlet is a “massive douchebag” – and this, he concludes, “doesn’t make for an especially moving end”.

Hamlet – Disappointing Dunbar

Adrian Dunbar is best known for playing Superintendent Ted Hastings in the hit BBC police drama Line of Duty, but he has appeared on stage in dozens of productions in Ireland, London and New York. Here he plays Hamlet’s murderous Uncle Claudius – but he doesn’t quite captivate the critics.

His Claudius is “disappointingly wooden” for Crompton, and “wildly unconvincing” for Swain. For Ava Wong Davies (Independent, ★★), meanwhile, his performance “does not have any real personality outside of a general, inexact sense of duplicitousness”. Tara Fitzgerald is received similarly: her Gertrude is “undercooked”, according to Akbar, and “lacks vigour” according to Benedict.

Others in the ensemble fair better, particularly Norah Lopez Holden, who plays Ophelia. She is “superb” according to Crompton, while for Smith she provides a “fierce, emotionally cogent performance” and for Akbar is “magnificent… wrenching emotional depth from a thin, flat role.”

Elsewhere, there is admiration for Joseph Marcell’s Polonius – a “funny, self-important” delight according to Heather Neill (The Arts Desk, ★★★) – and for Taz Skylar and Joana Borja’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are “memorable” as “a pair of vacuous, Insta-happy wreckheads”, writes Lukowski.

Hamlet – An uncertain Elsinore

So much for the stars, but what about the show itself? Director Greg Hersov ran the Manchester Royal Exchange for 27 years, helping to turn it into the flagship theatre it is today, and launching countless careers – including Jumbo’s – as he did so. But the critics don’t think he gets it right here.

Reviewers are appreciative of Anna Flesichle’s sparse, smoke-and-mirrors design (it’s “very cool” according to Lukowski, and “extraordinary” according to Akbar) and of how clear Hersov’s production is, plot-wise (Crompton calls it “clear and clever”, while Tripney admires how “the text has been filleted with precision and expertise like a fish at a fancy French restaurant”), but beyond that, there is little else they like.

Many complain of a lack of overall artistic ambition. This Hamlet is “conceptually thin, its Elsinore unrooted”, writes Tripney, while Davies decries a lack of “coherent vision”, Benedict lambasts it as “a flavourless, flaccid production”, and Cavendish calls it “a bit mumbo-jumbo-ish”.

“Hersov’s three-hour, 15-minute version drags terribly in places,” says Swain. “It often feels like we’re going from A to B because that’s what’s in the script rather than real narrative momentum, an emotional arc or dramatic stakes fuelling the show. Big moments are oddly fumbled, and there are irritating blocking issues.”

Another common complaint is condensed by Lukowski: the show just isn’t that sad. “Ultimately, it’s not very tragic and that’s a problem with a tragedy,” he writes. “At the very end… Horatio is in bits. But we’re not. And that’s selling Hamlet very short.” 

Hamlet – The Verdict

The critics mostly concur over Greg Hersov’s production. Cush Jumbo is an energetic, enthralling and edgy Hamlet, and Norah Lopez Holden a revelatory Ophelia. 

Both are largely let down, though, in the first instance by their supporting cast – Adrian Dunbar is a big disappointment – and in the second by the production surrounding them, which doesn’t offer an especially engaging artistic take on the play.

Ratings range from two stars to four, based on whether they think Jumbo’s exceptional central performance saves the show that surrounds it or not. Most award three.