It was tried by Eddie Izzard and got slated by the critics. Now audiences are invited instead to banish all memories of Izzard's one-person Hamlet and come and witness Mark Lockyer's version at Wilton's Music Hall.
This experience, set in a classic old-time venue, is largely worth it. The atmosphere is bleak and dimly lit in an almost deliberately dilapidated venue. Then walks Mark Lockyer onto a bare stage punctuated by shafts of light; that adds to the sense of foreboding that overhangs the entirety of this one-person show. Throughout, the audience is drawn to an undertaking that by nature is a feat of energy and memory, which in themselves deserve applause.
And the experiment, although not a first, is an interesting take on Shakespeare’s longest-running drama experienced in less than two hours, thanks to the no frills approach of Lockyer’s rendition, which nonetheless doesn’t cut out any scenes or characters from the original text.
Another pull for this staging is Mark Lockyer's backstory, of which he has spoken openly, about the mental illness and addiction that consumed eleven years of his life as well as impacting on his marriage. Coming back from all this has no doubt developed him as a person, and this development perhaps helped him to intelligently interpret the isolated and troubled soul who is the Prince of Denmark.
And a further bonus is the compelling story of how it came about, being proposed by Mark’s former wife, Fiona Laird, who saw Mark many years later when he was performing in another one-person show and proposed the idea of him acting in a one-man Hamlet directed by her.
So we have it, in this stark setting, minimally lit and watched by an audience seated in the venue’s somewhat uncomfortable seats, all of which help to keep the attention even more focussed on what’s happening on stage. To an extent, Lockyer’s performance works. But the challenges of making all the parts of Hamlet truly distinctive show, although they become more individualised towards the end as the action gathers pace with the scenes of sword fighting and poisoning playing out.
While Lockyer has a presence, it’s not quite enough to carry all 23 parts, especially the female roles. Was there a good reason to use just one actor, beyond giving it some novelty? Yes, because while it didn’t necessarily add to an understanding of the text or the characters, the sheer boldness of this approach is a good addition to the palette of possibilities in presenting Hamlet.