HAMLET (1970)

STARS: Richard Chamberlain, Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud, Margaret Leighton, Richard Johnson, Ciaran Madden.

DIRECTOR: Peter Wood. DURATION: 120 mins.

SYNOPSIS: Low-budget adaptation of Shakespeare's great tragedy about the Danish prince tortured by the murder of his father.

RC PLAYS: Hamlet.

Dr. Kildare as a convincing melancholy Dane: To be or not to be, that is the question? And it seems the answer is yes. Chamberlain's unexpected success as Hamlet in Birmingham Rep's stage production during the late Sixties led to America's Hallmark Hall of Fame series to ask him to reprise the role for a TV special.

Hallmark had produced another version back in 1953, but as Richard said at the time, "Now they want to take another look at it - with me. I'm the lead. It's wonderful, and quite frightening."

And there's no wonder Chamberlain was filled with trepidation over the job - he was about to take the lead role in what is generally accepted as the stage's most demanding part, with two figures from Britain's theatrical royal family breathing down his neck.

"I was terrified when rehearsals began," explained Richard. "After all, Redgrave played Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1950, and Gielgud did it in 1929, six years before I was born and he's done it 500 times since. But I must say there was none of the stuff I feared, like those patient pointers from the master which begin, 'Well, yes, but what I did was -.' None of that. Instead I got the occasional, 'Richard, if I might make a suggestion...' But every time, the suggestion was just right."

Around this time, Chamberlain was so involved in the role that he penned an article about it for the New York Times, and attempted to stress Hamlet's accessibility and relevance to a present day audience. "He's as modern as anything," claimed the actor of the role. "Almost all of us are betrayed - if nothing else, betrayed by society. Hamlet is betrayed by the people who love him. Everybody does him in, except Horatio. Yes, even Ophelia."

In the end, all Richard's worries over his ability to play the role in such a high profile production proved to be unfounded. Even Michael Redgrave said of his young co-star, "He seems to have a very good idea of it."

The programme itself became the most-watched Shakespearean production ever at that time, reaching a massive audience of over 50million people worldwide - despite angering purists by cutting the original text from a bum-numbing three-and-a-half hours to a more audience-friendly two.

Kenneth Branagh's big screen version has since rectified that matter. But the popularity of Hallmark's film meant that Shakespeare was introduced to a whole new audiece, although Roman Polanski's MacBeth (1971) and Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) probably did as much to boost the Bard as Chamberlain.

More importantly for the actor though was the fact that it gave his ailing post-Kildare career the massive shot in the arm it needed.

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