Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

I always like it when a man is introduced in reference to his more famous partner (though sadly it usually happens the other way round.) In this case, George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) is actually better known for being the partner or 'companion' of Mary Ann Evans - herself better known as George Eliot. By the time Eliot was writing, some female authors were  being published under their own names but  she chose to escape the stereotypes surrounding women's writing and its supposed limitations by choosing a male-sounding name. She also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her writing as an editor and literary critic. The magnificent  Middlemarch  is an epic summer holiday read if you need one. Martin Amis, eminent novelist in his own right, describes it as being 'the'  novel of the 19th century ', and a group of international critics decided that it was the best novel of all time  back in 2015. Quite a claim indeed. Anyway, I digress. We're...

Ophelia makes Polonius 'present' in the absence of a body This is the shortest act of the production at just 28 minutes, but is full of pace and action. The stage is filled with ever-changing movement. Increasingly sinister and ominous music between scenes contributes to the building sense of threat, and the movement to different locations seems almost seamless; as though we are running through the castle with the characters. There are instructions, letters, machinations, plotting. Hamlet's arrest by a guard is very physical: he is thrown to the floor in a half-nelson submission hold. His insolent foot tapping and movement, and loose-limbed rebellious mocking of Claudius get the audience on side and there is much laughter - but his reactions seem those of a man who has run out of options and has nothing left to lose. Everything about Essiedu's appearance and manner is subversive; down to his shabby clothing and turned-up trousers - in such contrast to the costume...

As we move into Act III (which is the longest part of this production running at 44 minutes), the stage is draped in enormous canvases, hanging down from the ceiling and spread across the floor. They suggest Hamlet's mania from their volume, and the preoccupations of his troubled mind in the calligramatic references to serpents, crowns and skulls. The concept of the tortured artist is constructed visually before it is enacted. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's incompetence is suggested through their casual behaviour at the start of the scene, giving the idea that they don't really have their minds on the job, but are treating their time here as a holiday. Essiedu's Hamlet embarks on the 'To be or not to be' speech with a plaintive, questioning tone. You can explore the RSC's approach to this in more depth here . When Ophelia enters she is evidently still smarting from their previous exchange and attempts to return a large box of gifts and keepsakes fr...