National Theatre Live Screening
Hamlet
Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 3pm
By William Shakespeare
A Production From National Theatre
Running time: 2 hour and 57 minutes. Including a 15 minute interval.
Hamlet: Hiran Abeysekera
Guildenstern: Joe Bolland
Marcellus / Captain: Phil Cheadle
Getrude: Ayesha Dharker
Ghost / Player King /First Gravedigger: Ryan Ellsworth
Laertes: Tom Glenister
Osric / Voltemand: Mary Higgins
Nurse / Priest: Liz Jadav
Fortinbras: Kiren Kebaili-Dwyer
Rosencrantz: Hari Mackinnon
Ophelia: Francesca Mills
Cornelius /English Ambassador / Second Gravedigger: Sophia Papadopoulos
Claudius: Alistair Petrie
First Player: Siobhán Redmond
Francisco / Reynaldo: Seb Slade
Polonius: Geoffrey Streatfeild
Director: Robert Hastie
Set and Costume Designer: Ben Stones
Lighting Designer: Jessica Hung Han Yun
Sound Designer: Alexandra Faye Braithwaite
Composer: Richard Taylor
Movement Director: Ira Mandela Siobhan
Fight Director: Kate Waters
Director for Screen: Christine Lalla
Lighting Directors: David Bishop
Sound Supervisor: Conrad Fletcher
Script Supervisor: Stephanie Rose
Dr. Sophie Duncan on truth, lies and the power of direct address in Hamlet, an excerpt from the the National Theatre’s programme for Hamlet.
The convention that characters speak truthfully in soliloquy is especially important in Hamlet, set at a court – Elsinore - which really can’t cope with the truth. Is the court unable to see or unwilling to admit the circumstances of Claudius’ leap to the throne? Even Hamlet cruelly denies authorship of his letters to Ophelia, while Polonius’ tactic for monitoring Laertes’ French sojourn is to send a servant to throw out lies about him to see if anyone bites: fake news as honeytrap.
As audience members, we rely on soliloquies to understand who Shakespeare’s characters really are, whether that’s revealed in the vulnerability of distress, or the isolation of prayer. It can also feel dangerous to spend too long inside these characters’ minds: when Claudius reveals his crimes, are we his confidants or his coconspirators? Are we complicit in the play’s bloodletting? Is there a temptation – even a responsibility – to stop the characters from going to their deaths? More frightening still, when Hamlet poses his questions of life and death, are we any more sure of the answers than he is? As a play, Hamlet is obsessed with the soliloquy, forcing characters unable to be open with each other to be honest with four centuries’ worth of audiences.
Hamlet opened the entire National Theatre project, at The Old Vic on October 22, 1963, in a production directed by Laurence Olivier with Peter O’Toole playing Hamlet.
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