Benedict Cumberbatch gets mixed response for Hamlet debut

Benedict Cumberbatch ” s first preview performance of “Hamlet’ has caused controversy after a spate of reviews were published two weeks ahead of the production’s official press night.

One of the main reasons we’ve been having to wait for a new Sherlock series is Benedict Cumberbatch’s turn in Hamlet on stage – so has it been worth it? Ticket sales have been among the briskest ever recorded for a play, and The Guardian says that avid Cumberbatch fans, known as “Cumberbitches”, have been queuing for hours outside the Barbican for a limited release of day tickets.

The fall of the final curtain acted as a cue for a sudden commencement of elbow-jostling among the papers to be the first to review the production, with the Daily Mail claiming it as “electrifying”, Radio Times claiming that Benedict’s particular strength lay in “finding laughs in unexpected places” and the Telegraph calling it “lavish” and “epic”.

She wrote: “His Hamlet in a hoodie was electrifying, a performance that veered from moments of genuinely hilarious comedy to plunge down to the very depths of throat-scalding tragedy”. Davis adds that Cumberbatch “commands and surprises”, and is well supported by a cast that includes the “always moving and intelligent Ciaran Hinds as Hamlet’s murdering uncle Claudius”.

Hollywood actor Benedict Cumberbatch wowed every single soul present at London’s Barbican theatre on Wednesday evening when he stepped on stage as Hamlet.

She was critical of the decision to open the play with Hamlet’s famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be”, saying it was “indefensible”.

The Times’ theatre critic Kate Maltby was not impressed.

Summing up her view, she wrote: “It’s a wasted opportunity: pure theatrical self-indulgence”.