Cumberbatch’s mother ‘extraordinarily proud’ of son

He wrote: “He [Cumberbatch] is trapped inside an intellectual ragbag of a production by Lyndsey Turner that is full of half-baked ideas”.

The modern-dress production of Hamlet, directed by Lyndsey Turner, has been hailed as the fastest-selling play in British history.

The London Times critic Kate Maltby, who recently broke theatreland’s gentleman’s agreement and reviewed the production after a preview show, upped her original review from two to three stars but wrote: “This is Hamlet for kids raised on Moulin Rouge“.

He made his debut in the production earlier this month, and made headlines after pleading with fans not to film his performances, saying he found the experience “mortifying”. “So too is this production”, he said in his review.

The Guardian’s Michael Billington has only given two stars for its ‘frustrating and dismal production’.

“Cumberbatch, in short, suggests Hamlet’s essential decency”.

Paul Taylor from The Independent described it as a “rather mixed affair” and gave it three stars, saying it was “stunningly designed by Es Devlin, with a fair bit of text and story-line shifted around by Turner, to sometimes eloquent, sometimes irritating effect”.

Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch is hoping to impress the critics as he takes to the stage for the official press night of Hamlet. One of the newspaper’s criticisms was the decision to move Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be…” soliloquy from the third act to the first. He may lack the moodiness of Daniel Day-Lewis, the quirkiness of David Tennant or the raw edge of Jude Law but in his own way he stands equal to the best modern Hamlets.

Ben Brantley, the chief theatre critic for the New York Times said the show was “never emotionally moving” and added: “Some of the interpolations are seriously irritating”.

And the critics appeared to like what they saw of the leading man, even if the play itself wasn’t a hit – the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish called Cumberbatch “a blazing, five-star Hamlet trapped in a middling, three-star show”, while Whatsonstage.com’s Michael Coveney complemented the star on his “superbly, urgently, intelligently” delivered soliloquies.

“This is a fine Hamlet in a patchy, occasionally puerile production”.

“Full of scenic spectacle and conceptual tweaks and quirks, this “Hamlet” is never boring”.