Australian viewers will have another opportunity to watch David Tennant's documentary on Hamlet in Shakespeare Uncovered The programme will conclude the series which has been airing on The History Channel.
Shakespeare Uncovered
David Tennant On Hamlet
Friday 11th April, The History Channel, 7.30pm
In Hamlet, David Tennant, whose own RSC performance was a
huge hit, meets other actors who have played the role - from the legendary
David Warner in the 1960s to the recent Jude Law. He also tries, alongside
Simon Russell Beale and Ben Whishaw, to unravel the meaning of the play and the
reason why it is considered by many to be the greatest play Shakespeare ever
wrote. David Tennant surprised when he took on the role of Hamlet - most did
not know that he had trained in and worked for many years at the Royal
Shakespeare Company. But that didn't mean he wasn't scared stiff at the
prospect of taking on the legendary role. Now he takes up the challenge of
unravelling the story and trying to uncover what it is about it that has made
Hamlet the most famous of all of Shakespeare's plays. He revisits his own
performance, alongside his director Greg Doran, and he meets up with other
actors who have tackled the role. With the historian Justin Champion he tries
to enter the mindset of the 16th century audiences who would have watched this
story and he discovers how different generations of actors, directors and
scholars have interpreted the play. What he discovers is that Hamlet is a play
full of questions rather than answers - but they are the questions we all
continue to ask ourselves to this day. Questions about who to believe, who to
trust, how to live and how to love, how to understand life and how to face
death. What all the actors who have played it seem to share is that the process
of acting the role is deeply and profoundly personal - and perhaps that is why
audiences also feel that the play touches them more than any other play before
or since.
The episode is repeated on the morning of Saturday 12th at 3.30am and 11.30am
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