(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

maaseru sent me a link to this interesting article about David Tennant in Hamlet. I liked the opening line with its link between this and "The Shakespeare Code": "For the second time in his career, David Tennant is finding himself saving Shakespeare." But even better, a connection I'd never thought of:

Tennant ... has no difficulty in making the transition from the BBC's Time Lord to a man who could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself a king of infinite space.

I'd never thought of the Doctor in the TARDIS as "a king of infinite space", but now I think of it, I can't imagine a better description of him.

Ever since Tennant became the Tenth Doctor, I've thought he had a good dollop of Hamlet in him: clever, mercurial, eloquent, suicidal. I wonder how the Doctor got along with his mother, and whether he had an uncle. Or a stepfather.

I'm tired of the condescension shown to SF in these articles, though, as if Tennant and Stewart have never done Shakespeare before, or as if Star Trek and Doctor Who fans are too déclassé for such highfalutin Tudor drama - as if they don't really want the riffraff wandering about the premises.

It's all storytelling, and one of the great virtues of Shakespeare is that he was never a snob. So why do the people producing his plays become so patronizing?

Comments

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Thank God it's good! I was worried. Good on ya, David!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

How I wish I could see it. I saw the Stratford Ontario Hamlet last week and loved it - not the best I've seen, but not bad at all, and certainly not boring in any way. It raised my never-deeply-buried Hamlet-love. Aah, if only I could see Tennant - as a fly on the wall, a ghost in the rafters, a technician in a booth - anything!

I adore that play.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm jealous you got to see the Stratford Ont one, especially as it has my beloved "Scott the First"... but in a choice of two Hamlets and only money enough to cover one...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

it has my beloved "Scott the First".

And he was wonderful.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

He is AMAZING.

I want you to tell ALL about this production!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I will, at the first opportunity.