To See, or Not to See

Sorry, time got away from me tonight.  I went to the National Theatre Live production of Hamlet that starred Benedict Cumberbatch as that melancholy Dane.  And it's a long sucker.  About 3 hours and 20 minutes.  And to make things even longer, I left early to meet friends for dinner, and to deal with the rush hour traffic I left even earlier still, around 5 PM.  The short version -- of a long night -- is this whole process took about six hours.  And so, given that it's late now, the Film Festival will return tomorrow.

The play was wonderful, and the Cumberbatch fellow was (not shockingly) great.  They do an absolutely great job at these National Theatre Live productions, really trying to capture the live theater experience.  It's not the same as being at the theater obviously, but still impeccable.  

The initial productions are done live and beamed around the world into select movie theaters.  This year, however, they've mixed into the schedule a lot of their most popular classics and brought them back -- of which tonight's Hamlet was one. (I've written of some of the others, which I've seen -- thus far One Man, Two Guvnors with James Corden, for which he later won the Tony Award, and The Audience with Helen Mirren (winning the Tony Award, as well) again as Queen Elizabeth, and again written by Peter Morgan who wrote The Queen 

You can find out more about National Live and future production here.  

And this is a short trailer for Hamlet.  And then to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream...