Cumberbatch fans cross the world to see his Hamlet debut

Regular theatregoers have complained they have been unable to secure tickets to the production because of unprecedented interest from young fans of the Sherlock television series who are desperate to see their idol on stage.

And while the other reviews of Wednesday’s show were highly complementary, Twitter has been alight with upset fans, actors, journalists and theatre producers, all upset with how Cumberbatch has been treated.

In her dissection of the production, Kate Maltby’s conclusion is that it is nothing more than “Hamlet for kids raised on Moulin Rouge”.

“For 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”, wrote Jan Moir in his review for Daily Mail.

Tabloid media revealed that the 39-year-old Benedict Cumberbatch‘s opening night performance at London’s Barbican theatre lived up to the hype it created and theatergoers have described his acting as an electrifying, sublime and riveting performance, reported the Mirror.

“Not perhaps since it held the barricades of revolution for the first performances of Les Miserables in the Eighties has this platform seemed quite so large”.

Taking a different tack, the Times appears to have taken particular exception to the shift of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Act Three right up to the beginning of the play. It is, she says, “a pure theatrical self-indulgence”.

Cumberbatch is supported by Ciaran Hinds as Claudius and Sian Brooke as Ophelia in the play which runs until 31 October.