This year my birthday turns out to be on Monday 20th March and I’m turning 25 then… I usually spend just one day celebrating but this year there are going to be few things that I’m planning to do. The first evening when I’m going out was yesterday – I saw the rebroadcast of the play Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role thanks to National Theatre Live initiative.

It was definitely the best Hamlet by William Shakespeare that I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen plenty in my life already. When I was 15/16 I was attending for some kind of workshop that was all about Shakespeare’s plays. We were going for always different play, improvising on the stage and this way our director created a script based on our improvised ideas. This whole project ended with the double premiere of our Shakespeare inspired play. Who did I play? The ghost – Hamlet’s father. It may seem strange but I wore a coat and a hat under which I hid my long hair and I really loved it. I remember the scene of pinching other characters, moving stuff etc. It was so fun and nobody was paying attention to me because I was a ghost! And yes, it was my idea and that’s way it made it to the script… Anyways… The play was all about Shakespearean characters living in one building…

Let’s go back to the play that I saw yesterday. Without the intermission in the middle, it lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes. It was the broadcast of the play that was recorded in 2015 but it felt like it was live anyway. And it was played in three cinemas in Warsaw and in selected ones in whole Poland so it was quite a big thing anyway. I have never seen the cinema so full! And while leaving, everybody were getting free cans of Coke Zero. I have never got a free drink in the cinema! And now, in the world on inflation, such a can only tastes cooler…

If you ever have a chance to see it in the cinema like I did, you definitely should go. It was a very interesting interpretation, the mix of modern world and 19th/20th century. Language was easy to understand but I could hear there were also archaisms. And I’m Polish, you know! It was probably the second time in my life when I was watching a play in English… Anyways… Benedict Cumberbatch was amazing in the role of Hamlet. It was tragic and really funny sometimes! Sometimes I also was reminded about Sherlock Holmes… I loved stenography, music, horror type of sounds… I didn’t feel tired at all while watching it and let me remind you that the whole event lasted about 3 hours 30 minutes right with the intermission. It’s totally recommended! In every possible way!

How about you guys? Shakespearean plays are very close to my heart and I guess it shows… It’s the classic piece of culture and that’s undeniable but I’m very curious what you personally think about it. In Poland not all classic stuff is liked nowadays unfortunately…

Today that’s all and tomorrow I’m coming back with the last post about Carnival Row.

See ya tomorrow then!

AA