Hamlet - The Video Game!

Published: 10 July 2018
Reporter: Peter Lathan

Edward / Edalia Day Credit: Bill Jackson
Edward / Edalia Day Credit: Andy Byrne
Hamlet 64

Super Hamlet 64, a comedy spoken word show about videogames and death based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, comes to Newcastle’s Alphabetti Theatre on 18 and 19 July at 7:30.

Singing ghosts, philosophical zombie shootouts and an epic boss battle between a Samurai sword-wielding Ophelia and a giant mechanical beast are just some of the features of this version of Hamlet by poetry slam winner Edward / Edalia Day who set about rewriting the play using only videogame quotes.

No matter how surreal the play is, Day said, it remains true to the original.

Hamlet is about a boy struggling to cope with death. Videogames are a medium where you die a million times but never truly die."

Combining classical text with modern poetry, the show also dissects modern ideas of privilege, gender and mortality.

How would it feel, Day asks, if you woke up one morning and realised that your life was actually a computer game? Your dad just died, your uncle's married your mum and is hell-bent on world domination, while the person you have a crush on turns out to be a Samurai sword-wielding super hero. Oh, and your Dad's a singing ghost.

Inspired by films like Scott Pilgrim vs The World and full of retro animation and comedy songs, Super Hamlet 64 is, we are told, a fast-paced retelling of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy.

Edward / Edalia Day is a trans / non-binary spoken word artist, animator and theatre maker based in Norwich who trained in mime at the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris and has performed in a wealth of Shakespeare with notable roles including Bottom, Malvolio, Hamlet, Prospero and King Lear.

On Thursday between 2:00 and 4:00, Day will be running a comedy Shakespeare workshop exploring wordplay spontaneity; audience interaction; idiocy, ignorance and arrogance.

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, The Ticket Factory, LW Theatres and QuayTickets, are affiliate links for which BTG may earn a small fee at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Are you sure?