Peter Hall 1965 production

In Peter Hall's 1965 youth appealing Hamlet, the 24-year-old David Warner played the title role as a student prince, disillusioned with the world around him.

Production Photos

Act 1 Scene 2

Hamlet A little more than kin and less than kind

The recently crowned Claudius greets his court and introduces his new wife, Gertrude, his former sister-in-law. When urged by his mother Gertrude to stop wearing mourning clothes, Hamlet insists that grief for his father goes deeper than “the trappings and the suits of woe”.

Hamlet – David Warner

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Act 2 Scene 2

Polonius I have a daughter - have whilst she is mine –
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Have given me this: now gather, and surmise.

Polonius tells the King and Queen that he thinks the cause of Hamlet’s madness is love for his daughter, Ophelia. He reads them a love letter from Hamlet to Ophelia.

Polonius – Tony Church
Claudius – Brewster Mason
Gertrude – Elizabeth Spriggs

Reg Wilson © RSC Browse and license our images

Act 2 Scene 2

Hamlet My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Hamlet jests with his old school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who have been summoned to the court by Claudius and Gertrude.

Rosencrantz – John Bell
Hamlet – David Warner
Guildenstern – James Laurenson

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Act 2 Scene 2

Hamlet We’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality: come, a passionate speech.

Hamlet welcomes the travelling players to Elsinore and urges the First Player to recite the killing of King Priam.

Player King – William Squire
Hamlet – David Warner

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Act 3 Scene 1

Polonius Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.

Polonius and Claudius prepare to hide themselves and eavesdrop on the imminent encounter between Ophelia and Hamlet. Ophelia is instructed by her father Polonius to read a book to give an impression of piety while she waits for Hamlet to ‘accidentally’ discover her.

The production opened in August 1965 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, with Glenda Jackson playing Ophelia. In December, it transferred to the Aldwych Theatre, London, and Janet Suzman took over the role of Ophelia.

Polonius – Tony Church
Ophelia – Janet Suzman

Photo by Reg Wilson © RSC Browse and license our images

Act 3 Scene 1

Hamlet To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

In the most famous soliloquy in the play, Hamlet reflects on suicide and what happens when we die.

Some reviewers thought that David Warner mumbled his words but others found his natural and fresh interpretation of Hamlet as a disillusioned student chimed perfectly with the mood of the times.

Hamlet – David Warner

Act 4 Scene 5

Claudius How do you, pretty lady?
Ophelia Well, God yield you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.

Gertude and Claudius are unable to restrain the disturbed Ophelia, who has gone mad with grief since her father’s death.

Gertrude – Elizabeth Spriggs
Claudius – Brewster Mason
Ophelia – Janet Suzman

Act 5 Scene 1

Gravedigger A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, this same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the king’s jester.

As the gravedigger prepares a new grave, he disturbs the skull of Yorick, the old King’s jester. Hamlet recalls playing with Yorick when he was a child and discusses mortality with Horatio.

Gravedigger – David Waller
Hamlet – David Warner
Horatio – Donald Burton

Launch Gallery

What the Critics said:

'Frail, bedecked with a long scarf and acquired pop-star status as an epitome of 1960s youth.'
Michael Billington, writing in Guardian, 6 August 2008

"... David Warner in 1965, whose tortured student with college scarf was described by Ronald Bryden [theatre critic and drama professor] as getting 'more of humanity into the part than any previous Hamlet I've seen'...'
Cited by David Lister in The Independent, 23 December 1992

And about the Ghost:

'Almost all directors are embarrassed by this skittish spook [Ghost] and attempt to hide him away behind the battlements. Here he becomes a giant Sicilian marionette, breathing smoke and rolling along on invisible wheels. Hamlet's dependence on his father is therefore conveyed in striking tableau when even the more-than-six-foot David Warner shrinks to child-size in those montrous arms.'
Alan O'Brien, Sunday Telegraph, 22 August 1965

Production Photos

What the Critics said:

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