Jack Thorne’s new play looks at Richard Burton and John Gielgud’s relationship during rehearsals for Hamlet in 1964
“There’s been no shortage of stage portrayals of real life VIPs in the past couple of years,” said Clive Davis in The Times. Jack Thorne’s “thoughtful, often wickedly droll” new play, about the relationship between Richard Burton and John Gielgud during rehearsals for a 1964 production of Hamlet on Broadway, is a “distinguished addition” to the genre. “Immaculately directed by Sam Mendes”, it is a “poised study” of how two actors with very different temperaments scrapped and sparred in the run-up to opening night. Gielgud, a Shakespearean actor of the old school, who was directing the play, felt his own star was fading; by contrast, the young, arrogant hard-drinking Burton was at the peak of his career, even if it was being overshadowed in the press by his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor.
