Jazzed Shakespeare… Hamlet: Rotten States, Hope Theatre, 6FootStories

The play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

The 6FootStories company have a mission statement “to create bold, exciting pieces of theatre that bend the rules of reality. We like to throw ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances, and explore the big ideas along the way, like LIFE and DEATH and FAITH.” Well, we got all of that in the most unpredictable of evenings in N5 during which Brian Blessed – although he was never present – was revealed to be Hamlet’s father!

The trick with deconstructing and then exploding Shakespeare is that you need to be able to perform it too and this the magnificent trio of Amy Fleming, Will Bridges and Jake Hassam do with aplomb, grounding this runaway reality in the lines of the play. They can improvise around the words as easily as Charlie Parker or Kamasi Washington can take flight with a tune but as with the jazzmen they know the formalities perfectly well.

At one point, Jake Hassam (who along with fellow performer-writer Nigel Munson, set up the company) coaches Amy Fleming’s character in the performance of one famous soliloquy; she goes loud, she goes soft until she get’s it reasonably right. The trio are playing gypsies who have been given instructions by Prince Hamlet to perform a play that, by telling how Hamlet’s father was killed, will reveal the true killer, the King’s brother, by his reaction and possibly that of his wife, Hamlet’s mother and the dead King’s Queen. So far so Shakespeare but the 6Footers take this all in their stride and weave a completely new narrative between their entry and exit in the original play.

Jake Hassam, Amy Fleming and Will Bridges All photographs by Matthew Koltenborn

Whereas Tom Stoppard took minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and explained their battle against fate, here the players are allowed to offer a meditation on the nature of the play highlighting some of what A-level scholars have long termed the awkward bits; Ophelia’s drowning/suicide, Laertes gullibility and the earnest Prince’s inability to kill in cold blood.

All of this is achieved through a mixing desk controlling a glitched, electronic score and also containing a variety of props; Gertrude is played by a polystyrene bust and she wears it well. It’s all so well pitched and perfectly timed – wasn’t it The Bard himself who said that was the essence of all good humour? Or maybe it was Michael McIntyre or someone funny at any rate.

The end result has the audience laughing in between giving thought to what some of the arcane original text actually means which is the greatest tribute. This company have made Shakespeare accessible without lampooning him just “remixing” him.

IThankYou Theatre Rating: **** The fastest Hamlet you’ll see, fast enough to be in the West End, with perfectly controlled sprints from each performer in and around the original text. Quite extraordinary and very funny! I mean, the state of Denmark!

Hamlet: Rotten States plays at the Hope until 1^st February – full details on their website.