An entertaining excavation of work and political systems through the eyes of the gravediggers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Alas! Poor Yorick draws on David Graeber, Marx and popular culture to present a relentless critique of our institutional failings, hypocritical cultural mores and political inadequacies wrapped up in a 70-minute largely silent clown show. Alas! Poor Yorick represents the culmination of Ridiculusmus’s lifetime obsession with Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet.’
Beyond the means of a small-scale theatre company to mount a full scale production of the classic tragedy, the artistic partnership of Jon Haynes and David Woods pulls out every trick in their theatre playbook to create a Stoppardian take on the gravediggers from ‘Hamlet’. Re-enacting all the preceding acts of the original and meticulously staging the famous graveyard scene in all its four hundred and twenty year-old glory.
Flipping the original slide into chaos and mistaken murders into an existential clown piece, that is beautiful and oddly moving, the prevaricating protagonist is offered in a refreshingly less flattering light.
Event Date: Thursday 22nd August 2024 - Saturday 24th August 2024
Categories: Theatre
Contact Details: Shakespeare North Playhouse, Tel: 0151 433 7156
