SOURCE: Kliman, Bernice W. “A Richness of Hamlets.” The Shakespeare Newsletter 51, nos. 248-249 (spring-summer 2001): 39, 42, 44.

In the following review, Kliman compares two stage productions of Hamlet, one directed by John Caird and the other by Peter Brook. Kliman praises both productions, particularly the performances of Simon Russell Beale as Hamlet in Caird's play and Adrian Lester's Hamlet in Brook's production.

In his 1996 film, Kenneth Branagh cast Simon Russell Beale, who already had a distinguished career on stage, as the Second Gravedigger. Branagh darkened the shots with Beale almost to impenetrability and positioned him with back to camera or off-frame. But you can't keep a good man down. In the recent Royal National Theatre touring production, Beale embodied Hamlet, almost miraculously, as a good man in the deepest and richest sense of that bland word “good.”

The concurrent Hamlet by Adrian Lester provides an opportunity to compare two formidable performers...