***UPDATE: Do not miss this production! If anything it is even better at the Harold Pinter Theatre; it has kept the intimacy and lost the pillars that block views. The tension between the modernist set and such an overtly Victorian auditorium after the neutral Almeida accentuates the unease that characterises this fine piece of work.

Derbhle Crotty, who has taken over as Gertrude is every bit as good as Juliet Stevenson and I can’t believe I am saying that. I wept as much as I do at Lear and my daughter, who has never cried in a theatre before was bawling! The emotional intensity is astonishing. Guildernstern and the Grave Digger need to speak up.*****

My original review holds good (just insert Crotty’s name):

Hamlet is the ultimate role for any actor and the best pass into theatrical legend. There is no doubt that Robert Ickes’s unbearably moving new production at the Almeida is up there with the greats, as is Andrew Scott as Shakespeare’s tortured Dane.

It will come as no surprise that a man best known for playing vicious psychopath Moriarty weights the role on the side of true rather than feigned insanity and it needs no major imaginative leap to believe Andrew Scott’s Danish prince capable of drinking hot blood.

But what is unexpected is his vulnerability, conveyed through agonisingly understated diction as well as the occasional searing rant. The shockwaves of his grief at his father’s death and his mother’s betrayal rip through the audience in this intimate production.

Expectations about Scott’s appearance, following his star turn in BBC’s phenomenally successful Sherlock, mean a frenzy over tickets and there’s added piquancy given the last major London Hamlet was played by Sherlock Holmes himself, Benedict Cumberbatch but there is no contest.

Where the Cumberbatch production, in the colossal auditorium of the Barbican, was undermined by nonsensical gimmicks and poorly thought out sight-lines, the version in the pint-sized Almeida is a triumph on every level. I am trying to resist saying a palpable hit but it has just slipped out. Robert Icke has done it again.

Icke’s decision to go for completely naturalistic delivery makes every line intelligible and the audience, on this first preview, were literally straining to hear every word. If you want accessibility, this is how to do it.

The use of technology is very clever indeed with quasi-Sky news footage framing and punctuating the production while an ingenious use of cameras gives us close-ups of Claudius and Gertrude during The Players’ performance. The use of CCTV is quite simply brilliant and I am not going to spoil it by describing it here.

All of the main performers are strong but you will not see a better Gertrude than Juliet Stevenson’s – she is one of the main reason this production is such a success. She sizzles with desire for Claudius, with love for Hamlet and reels with self-loathing, whilst her farewell to Ophelia is one of the biggest tear-jerkers of very weepy evening.

The production comes in at just under four hours including two intervals but the time gallops away.

It ought to be filmed and really deserves a West End transfer — I assume both will happen.

(Note: This was my thirteenth Hamlet and is the best production I have ever seen joint with Kenneth Branagh’s.)

Hamlets in order of personal preference:

1 Kenneth Branagh & Alex Jennings

3 David Tennant & Andrew Scott

5 Toby Stephens

6 Michael Sheen

7 Roger Rees

8 Rory Kinnear

9 Jonathan Pryce

10 Ralph Fiennes

11 Jonathan Slinger

12 Simon Russell Beale

13 Benedict Cumberbatch