Moriarty does Hamlet
Apr. 3rd, 2018 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootVery good, very natural. Blows Benedict Cumberpatch's version away, but that really was a trivial thing. https://smokingboot.dreamwidth.org/566326.html
Didn't know what to expect really. Sherlock long ago paled into insignificance next to Elementary. In the former quickly dwindling series of non-sequiturs and short-cuts, Andrew Scott's Moriarty was a malign glinting homoerotic hamster of a villain. There was no way of knowing if he could actually act.
Well, this man can act.
Scott's Hamlet is a wrenching depiction of grief descending into mental illness, a man who speaks personally to the audience, rather than declaiming with great actoritude. He's also a very likeable Hamlet, important because throughout the script, the Dane is given far lovelier epithets than we ever see him earn. If he wasn't constantly flattered by family, subjects, and those who love him, we'd be close to dismissing him as a thorough little shit and Horatio's last speech 'Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,' would be less believable than 'Thank fuck that's over. God, he's your problem now.'
Even Scott can't rescue Hamlet from utter selfishness when he leaps into Ophelia's grave and grandstands Laertes' last embrace with his sister; no, no, the last word and the last embrace must be Hamlet's and no-one is allowed to feel pain as deeply as he does and no-one loved Ophebia as much as he did and and and...
But the power of this performance is that we get how his agony is something no-one can reach, for all he constantly converses with the audience. It works though it's not comfortable.
Weirdly, while the individual performances were excellent, in particular the best Ophelia I've ever seen, there was something about the play I didn't like. The music didn't fit at all, the graspable reality of the ghost didn't sit well with me, plus I am slightly bored with 1930s style settings for Shakespeare. I'm not saying it isn't effective, just that it's been done a lot.
Still, there's beauty in it as ever, and Andrew Scott's Hamlet is a star far beyond Moriarty.https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09yj7dz/hamlet
Didn't know what to expect really. Sherlock long ago paled into insignificance next to Elementary. In the former quickly dwindling series of non-sequiturs and short-cuts, Andrew Scott's Moriarty was a malign glinting homoerotic hamster of a villain. There was no way of knowing if he could actually act.
Well, this man can act.
Scott's Hamlet is a wrenching depiction of grief descending into mental illness, a man who speaks personally to the audience, rather than declaiming with great actoritude. He's also a very likeable Hamlet, important because throughout the script, the Dane is given far lovelier epithets than we ever see him earn. If he wasn't constantly flattered by family, subjects, and those who love him, we'd be close to dismissing him as a thorough little shit and Horatio's last speech 'Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,' would be less believable than 'Thank fuck that's over. God, he's your problem now.'
Even Scott can't rescue Hamlet from utter selfishness when he leaps into Ophelia's grave and grandstands Laertes' last embrace with his sister; no, no, the last word and the last embrace must be Hamlet's and no-one is allowed to feel pain as deeply as he does and no-one loved Ophebia as much as he did and and and...
But the power of this performance is that we get how his agony is something no-one can reach, for all he constantly converses with the audience. It works though it's not comfortable.
Weirdly, while the individual performances were excellent, in particular the best Ophelia I've ever seen, there was something about the play I didn't like. The music didn't fit at all, the graspable reality of the ghost didn't sit well with me, plus I am slightly bored with 1930s style settings for Shakespeare. I'm not saying it isn't effective, just that it's been done a lot.
Still, there's beauty in it as ever, and Andrew Scott's Hamlet is a star far beyond Moriarty.https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09yj7dz/hamlet
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