Hamlet: The prequel
It's a bloody tragedy
King Hamlet: warrior, father, ghost – and about to make the worst decision of his afterlife.
Betrayed by his brother Claudius, who has taken his crown, his wife and his life, Hamlet Senior refuses to lie down and die. This is not going to end well.
photos: Peter Mould
Only Yorick can stop the dead king destroying everything and everyone he loves. But he’s a fool.
It's not a question of whether to be or not to be. It's about how not to be. It’s about love, and loss, and legacy and letting go.
And hats. Hats are important.
It’s a battle of wits between two fools - and only one of them knows he’s a fool.
Waiting For Hamlet is a comedy about a tragedy, and a love letter to the greatest play ever written.
Coming soon
Fiercely witty and incisive, this intelligent comic drama won the Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing at the 2018 Windsor Fringe Festival.
See Waiting for Hamlet this summer in Brighton, Petworth, Hastings, Bristol and Edinburgh
"VERY CLEVER, FUNNY AND SKILLFULLY WRITTEN”
Project Whamlet
Waiting for Hamlet won its writer David Visick the International Kenneth Branagh New Drama Writing Award in 2018. The judges described it as “born from a love of the source material and an equal love of Stoppard-esque wordplay,” and “very clever, funny and skillfully written.”
It was first performed at the Windsor Fringe in October 2018 and is presented this year as an extended 50-minute one-act two-hander.
Waiting for Hamlet Part II (the sequel to the prequel) is being prepared for performances in 2021. It continues the adventures of the King and the Fool as they observe and take part in the action in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Its cast of six play all the characters from the original.
The premiere performance of both parts together is planned for later this year.
the players
King Hamlet: Tim Marriott
Yorick: Nicholas Collett
The Writer: David Visick
David grew up in Eastbourne. He has worked as a teacher, a journalist and a communications director and has written two books, Farrow and Ball will be Named in our Divorce and Vanity Mirror. For ten years he wrote a blog, My Homework Ate the Dog, and won the Word Magazine Blog of The Year award in 2012. Waiting for Hamlet, which won the 2018 International Kenneth Branagh New Drama Writing Award at the Windsor Fringe, was his first play. He’s since written three more, A Play on Words, Absolutely Everything and The Leavers.
productions
Windsor 2018
Eastbourne 2020
Eastbourne 2020
The first production was directed by Paula Chitty with Edmund Dehn as the King and Elizabeth George as The Fool
Eastbourne 2020
Eastbourne 2020
Eastbourne 2020
Tim Marriott and Nic Collett performed the first reading of the new festival-length script
Summer 2020
Eastbourne 2020
Summer 2020
We'll be staging Waiting for Hamlet at theatre, literary and Shakespeare festivals from May, leading up to Edinburgh in August.