Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark

What Fun!

The Listies – Richard Higgins, Matt Kelly and Olga Miller – have created a spoof that mixes comedy and slapstick using the essential characters and story of the famous tragedy. Even if the young people in the audience don’t know the story of Hamlet, it’s explained … sort of … and there’s a very succinct summary in the program if they have a chance to read it beforehand.

All the key characters and features of the plot are there: the murder, the marriage, the mourning; the ghost, the girl, the play within a play. But it starts to deviate a bit as Ophelia decides to rewrite the script, adding a resurrection (her own), a zombie (herself), a space ship, a dinosaur, copious strings of slime and garbage tins firing smoke rings. Elsinore was never like this!

The Listies have tapped in to everything that makes kids laugh: lots of movement, lots of colour, silly hats and costumes, funny faces and plenty of poo and fart jokes! Mix this with some clever puns, a few political gags, shadow puppets, an enormous ear and a mad sword fight, and the story of Hamlet’s quest to revenge his father’s death becomes a hilarious romp that has universal appeal.

The set (Renee Mulder) is, necessarily, simple and practical, the props many and varied – everything from a fruit and cheese basket to tombstones to a rubber chicken. The timing is spot on. Performances such as this rely on fast pace, quick thinking and confidence in the technical crew to get every quirky sound effect right – and they do.

The audience – young and old – was totally engaged, laughing uproariously, and participating willingly in the fun.

Some of the highlights, according to my two 10 year old companions, were, surprisingly, a quick dig at Donald Trump, the motley weapons at each ‘level’ of the sword fight (including a baguette and the afore-mentioned rubber chicken), the dancing dinosaur and Ophelia’s ninja-nun gymnastics. They loved the ‘ear’ puns and Matt’s facial expressions in every scene.

This “badaptation” is fun for the whole family. It’s well-designed, a tiny bit educational (if you don’t mind the Bard being played around with a little), funny, entertaining and full of energy and imagination.

Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Prudence Upton.