Grand Theft Hamlet review – in-game Shakespeare performance is brilliantly exciting

In a hilarious and surreal documentary, two out-of-work actors decide to stage the tragedy within Los Santos with dreamlike and fascinating results

A brilliant idea, brilliantly executed; hilarious, surreal and, yes, in its weird way, genuinely exciting. This could be a Marat/Sade for the 21st century. During the lockdown, two out-of-work actors called Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were (remotely from each other) playing Grand Theft Auto (GTA) online – and this entire film is shown as in-game GTA action. As their avatars were avoiding getting shot, mutilated or beaten up in the normal GTA way, running through the vast and intricately detailed urban landscape of Los Santos, the quasi-LA in which the action happens, they chanced upon the deserted Vinewood Bowl amphitheater. They wondered if it might be possible to stage an in-game production of Hamlet there, recruiting other gamers to play the parts, in their various bizarre outfits and handles and personae, moving around the virtual reality space in that weightless, almost-real way, speaking the lines into their mics while the avatars’ lips move in approximate sync.

They audition all-comers: an uproarious business in which weird randoms show up with a tendency to destroy others by using a flame-thrower or rocket-launcher for no reason at all while the production is being explained to them. But they also encounter people who have fascinating or poignant stories to tell. At the end, we see the finished performance – though the atmospheric musical soundtrack was presumably added later, for the film.

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