Theatre review Scorching soliloquies and simmering tension light up the stage

By the time Laurence Olivier became Chichester Festival theatre's first artistic director in 1962, he was already a revered Hamlet on stage and screen.

- Chris Wiegand

But Chichester has never produced its own version of “the Danish play” until now. No pressure then for the director Justin Audibert, who took over in 2023.

In a year of briskly delivered Hamlets set at sea (by Rupert Goold) or soundtracked by Radiohead (the co-directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones), Audibert delivers not a high concept but a lucid and unhurried tragedy. In soliloquy after soliloquy, Giles Terera takes you deep into the prince's torment, the intimacy of the venue's Minerva theatre accentuating the precision of his expressions. The lights come up slightly when he reaches “To be or not to be”, his eyes slowly closing on “perchance to dream”. He is rudely wakened before that line's conclusion.