★★★★★
Forget Cumberbatch. Forget even Gielgud. I haven’t seen a more physically vivid, emotionally affecting or psychologically astute portrayal of the Prince of Denmark than Allan Clayton gives in this sensational production. From his show of infantile madness in the early scenes, through his heart-rending rejection of Ophelia, to his final unleashing of pent-up psychotic rage, you can’t take your eyes off this deceptively dishevelled, shambling figure.
What makes his performance more remarkable is that it is the centrepiece not of a conventional Shakespeare staging, but of a magnificent new opera on Hamlet by the Australian composer Brett Dean and the librettist Matthew Jocelyn (who audaciously refashions the play’s various surviving versions). So the superb cast assembled by Glyndebourne for the premiere are not just
