Age is no barrier to greatness

OSCAR WILDE once wrote that ‘there is no such thing as Shakespeare’s Hamlet’. His point was that the character, more than any other in world drama, depends on the actor’s individuality. You could hardly have better proof than Sir Ian McKellen’s performance in the current production at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Sir Ian may be 82, but his Prince is full of physical energy, intellectual zest and vocal virtuosity.

His Hamlet has its oddities, many of which spring from Sean Mathias’s production. Given that Hamlet explicitly tells us he has ‘foregone all custom of exercises’, it seems bizarre that Sir Ian should interrupt his first soliloquy by leaping onto