Five and Eighty Hamlets

Hamlet is probably the most famous play in the world. The distinguished English critic, J. C. Trewin, saw his first performance of it in 1922, and thereafter, professionally, as drama critic successively of the Observer, Punch, and the Illustrated London News, he saw it repeatedly through sixty years of theatrical history. In this most unusual book of theatrical criticism he discusses all the leading Hamlets, including John Barrymore, John Gielgud, Maurice Evans, Michael Redgrave, and Laurenc…