Shakespeare’s most famous play is one of the greatest tales in the literature of the world.

Distressed by his father’s death and his mother’s over-hasty remarriage, Hamlet, prince of Denmark is certainly faced with a specter from beyond the grave bearing a grim subject matter of murder and revenge. The young prince is powered to the advantage of madness by his struggle to understand the problem he finds himself in and to perform his duty. Numerous others, including Hamlet’s dearest, the innocent Ophelia, are embroiled in his tragedy.

Hamlet is played by Simon Russell Beale. Imogen Stubbs takes on Ophelia, Jane Lapotaire is normally Gertrude, and Bob Peck is definitely Claudius. Polonius can be performed by Norman Rodway.

“Listening to Hamlet again, the first is struck by just how many of the perform’s lines have become etched inside our collective storage—in the Dane’s early soliloquies to his humorous exchange with the grave digger in the ultimate respond. It’s all here in this recording, of course, and the performing is largely superb.”—AudioFile