Tower Hamlet at the Courtyard Theatre,London

It’s fair to say that experimental theatre may not be everybody’s tasse de thé-atre, but Admiration Theatre thrive on it - even to the extent they go as far to make it educational as well a entertaining for attending audiences.

In their innovative version of Shakespeare’s epic, ’Hamlet,’Admiration Theatre deliver ’Tower Hamlet’performed using the methods of Traditional British Shakespeare, Stanislavski, Lecoq, Mime and Grotowski. The result was a thought-provoking, comical and energetic display of visual art and dance.

Theatre reviews would generally explain a little about the plot of the play, but unless you are familiar with the story of Hamlet, there is little sense of attending the Courtyard Theatre to watch this production, therefore there is little sense of engaging readers with the plot of Hamlet in this review. For those who are familiar with the story of the Bards Danish Prince - together with an interest in theatre as a pure art form and power of expression - ’Tower Hamlet’is a must.

Played in the round, the scenes alter dramatically from one form of acting to the next and transform Shakespeare’s tragedy into a tragi-comedy. Opening with Traditional British Shakespeare, the actors slip effortlessly between different methods which at times borders on the verge of satire. With each scene the styles contrast between the surrealism of Stanislavski and Grotowski with the energy of mime.

Each theatrical style is played in groups of actors, thereby giving us several Hamlets and several Ophelias, which included Regina Fichter’s convincing mime of Hamlet seeing the ghost of his father and the bearded Giorgio Spieglegefield’s amusing Ophelia dressed in her ballerina’s costume complete with chest hair protruding from beneath the leotard.

Though the script is mostly true to the original, the contemporary take allowed for cultural references such as Hamlet turning up in England seeking asylum under the name of Mr Prince and declaring, "England is good. I can write a book."

Tower Hamlets is full of surprises, thought-provoking, though at times a little baffling. The play runs at the Courtyard Theatre until Sunday 21^st February.

Holiday update: The plans to take a trailer along the south coast are in full swing! Although we do need to look into getting a Touring caravan insurance quote, I am delegating this to Milton...