Danish Tragedy, The

Synopsis

Radio drama by Michael Innes, attempting to reconstruct the Ur-Hamlet, a lost play possibly written by Thomas Kyd, believed to be the immediate source of Hamlet. As Innes writes: "Basically ... I have tried to imagine what Hamlet would be like in a primitive stage of its dramatic development and presented in verse which exhibits at least some of the formal elements of the verse of The Spanish Tragedy". With Carleton Hobbs as Kyd, Charles Hodgson as Shakespeare and William Devlin as Hamlet.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Medium

Radio

Recording date

24 Feb 1958

Transmission details

5 Mar 1958 at 20:40 (Channel: BBC Third Programme)

Duration

65 mins

Availability

Unknown

Credits

Producer

Rayner Heppenstall

Writer

J. I. M. Stewart; Michael Innes

Cast

William Devlin	Hamlet
Laidman Browne	Claudius
Marjorie Westbury	Gertrude
Carleton Hobbs	Thomas Kyd
Charles Brodie	Guildenstern
Charles Hodgson	William Shakespeare
Geoffrey Wincott	Corambis
John Wood (2)	Rosencrantz
Norman Shelley	Robert Quirke
Richard Hurndall	Horatio

Additional Details

Production type

Television and Radio Drama

Plays

Hamlet

Subjects

Drama

Keywords

Shakespeare, William; Literary Sources; Literary adaptation

Notes

Notes

Michael Innes is the pseudonym for Scottish writer and academic J.I.M. Stewart.

General

Rehearsals: 22/2/1958-24/2/1958

Textual information

A written transcript of the production is held at the Birmingham Central Library as part of their Shakespeare Collection.

Reviews

Michael Innes writes about his production in ‘A Pre-Shakespearian "Hamlet"', Radio Times, 28 February 1958, p. 2.
The production was panned in The Times, 6 March 1958, p. 3 ('Kyd’s Lost Hamlet’) for being unclear about what it wanted to achieve.
Source: The Times, Radio Times

Production Company

Name

BBC

Notes

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)