Rarely have Polonius' words 'to thine own self be true' rung so hollow in Elsinore. Immersive theatre guru Tristan Sharps, of Dreamthinkspeak, has gutted 'Hamlet' and reassembled it in a sleek 'Big Brother house', in which there's no hiding place, and even an arras is hard to come by.
The action unfolds in a ring of claustrophobic, glass-fronted rooms, which also serve as screens for video projections. For an uninterrupted 90 minutes, the audience is herded together, free to peer at Hamlet's bookshelves, or Ophelia in her madness.
We spy on characters practising speeches in the mirror, and follow them offstage to rarely seen corners of the play: Hamlet's voyage to England, Laertes's European tour. Even the drowning of Ophelia is rendered in video, with Bethan Cullinane floating silently past, bubbles collecting in her eyelashes. These unexpected intimacies come at a price. Hamlet's best firend, Horatio, has been removed – taking with him all hints of authenticity or human kindness. Other absences, such as the band of players, rob the play of much subtlety and progression.
But the boldness of Sharps's interpretation overpowers these misgivings. Having rifled his diaries, every character pronounces Hamlet's 'To be, or not to be' speech at once. Amid the cacophony, Edward Hogg's understated delivery proves a revelation. Hogg is a superb Hamlet, embodying both scholar and soldier, helpless grief and incandescent fury.
The confrontation between he and his mother Gertrude, the sultry Ruth Lass, intercut with his rejection of Ophelia, is a triumph. This is deeply discomfiting theatre, but we emerge uniquely aware of just how close to Hamlet's rotten world we've come.