The Hamlet of Hope

 

In 1996, Kenneth Branagh released his film version of Hamlet, and it proved to be one of the grandest, most over-the-top adaptations of Shakespeare I have ever seen (and I've sat through the Max Reinhardt Midsummer Night's Dream - see note).

Hamlet is not a short play at the best of times, and Kenneth Branagh's version is not only completely uncut, he actually adds more stuff; inserting flashbacks, fantasy sequences and extra scenes, all of which add up to a film that runs over four hours. The already strong core cast (Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, Kate Winslet etc) is supplemented by some very very famous cameos, several of whom don't even have dialogue.

This is truly the Ben Hur of Hamlets, and it almost works - but that's a discussion for another day, because I have no plans to show this film, this week or any other week. Sorry, you weren't worried, were you?

A year before his behemoth Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh released a different Hamlet-related film. It doesn't have a cast of thousands; it doesn't have a running time that outlasts the terms of some Prime Ministers; it doesn't even have colour.

In the Bleak Mid-Winter (for some reason renamed A Mid-Winter's Tale for the US release) tells the story of an out-of-work actor who, in a moment of madness, decides to put on a charity performance of Hamlet over Christmas to save a local Church in the village of Hope.

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet may have had a cast of thousands, but the Hamlet of In the Bleak Midwinter consists mostly of six performers, a prosthetic nose and a gong. 

Made with a great deal of love, this film captures the experience of a specific section of British Theatre - one that was far closer to Branagh's own experiences as a young actor who did not graduate from RADA.

It also very clearly demonstrates something that no one had really suspected before: that Joan Collins could be funny.

After three deeply profound but slightly hefty stage adaptations in a row, I think we deserve a bit of a treat; so we will be showing In The Bleak Midwinter this Thursday (the 31st of March) at the Victoria Park Baptist Church at the usual time of 7.30.

** The Max Reinhardt Midsummer Night's Dream was a truly bizarre 1935 Hollywood extravaganza. Max Reinhardt was a hugely successful Austrian theatre impresario, invited to Hollywood when Warner Brothers decided they wanted to inject some high culture into their release catalogue. The resulting film is a dizzying mix of pre-war Weimar excess and Hollywood kitsch, with A-list  movie stars of the era - including James Cagney, Dick Powell and a very young Micky Rooney (whose performance as Puck is truly the stuff that nightmares are made of...)