Hamlet and Gertrude – Bedchamber 1– I was thirteen when I first saw Hamlet. It was a student production that came to our school, and it was... awful... The direction was poor; the set and costume pretty much afterthoughts; the lighting and props nonexistent; the lines patchy; the edit brutal (a four-and-a-half hour show reduced to an hour and forty minutes with a twenty minute interval! Yowch!); the two girls were very attractive, but also very wooden; the Hamlet whiny and unsure; the Claudius unmemorable... Only the Polonius was any good, funny, engaging and sure of his lines...