RSC goes for Hamlet hat-trick with production of Fat Ham
RSC goes for Hamlet hat-trick with production of Fat Ham
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James Ijames’s Pulitzer-winning play will be part of new season alongside adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG. The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is to complete a hat-trick of Hamlets with another version of the play unveiled as part of its spring 2025 programme.
James Ijames’s Pulitzer prize-winning play, Fat Ham, is not a straightforward adaptation of the Shakespeare play, but rather a production that “both echoes Hamlet and finds a language beyond it” in the words of the New York Times, setting the action at a barbecue held by the family of a Black queer man. It will run at the Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 15 August to 13 September.
The RSC has already announced two versions of the Shakespeare play. The first, which opens on 8 February, will see Rupert Goold, who was recently named as the new director of the Old Vic, direct the story of grief and family dysfunction in the Danish royal court.
The second is a combination of Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief album and the play, which will open at Aviva Studios, Manchester, from 27 April to 18 May before moving to the Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 4-28 June. The Radiohead frontman, Thom Yorke, has reworked the band’s critically acclaimed album into a deconstructed score that “illuminates the text” and is performed by live musicians.
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