The Play’s The Thing – A One Person Hamlet, Lighthouse, Poole

REVENGE, suspicion and family intrigue light up the stage in a powerful, concise version of Shakespeare’s most personal play starring Mark Lockyer.

Edited and directed by Fiona Laird for a single performer across 90 minutes, Hamlet takes on a new intensity in The Play’s the Thing.

The play explores Hamlet’s inner demons as never before. The prince, powerless against a tide of selfishness and injustice, loses his grip on reality. But if he really is mad, then is this story a figment of his broken imagination, and the other characters merely voices in his head?

This Hamlet started life when Fiona saw Mark playing two parts simultaneously in 2021’s Take Off Your Cornflakes at The White Bear Theatre, London and was subsequently developed at the National Theatre Studios.

Without the usual accompaniments of complex set, costumes and other actors, the play, and Shakespeare’s words, truly sing out – all the timeless phrases we know so well given a new meaning seen through the prism of one soul.

Expertly edited to 100 minutes straight through while losing none of the plot, characters or treasured quotes, as Hamlet himself says: “The play’s the thing.”

Former artistic director of the Royal National Theatre Rufus Norris said: “I cannot remember receiving Hamlet with more open ears and more abandon, such is Mark’s absolute commitment to and mastery of this timeless classic.”

The Play’s The Thing – A One Person Hamlet is on stage at Lighthouse Poole on Friday 16th May at 8pm. Tickets are from £16, for more information and bookings visit www.lighthousepoole.co.uk or contact the box office on 01202 280000.