Poll: Whose Version of "To Be or Not To Be" Do You Prefer?

Whose Version of To Be or Not To Be Do You Prefer?

  • Kenneth Branagh

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Richard Burton

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Ben Crystal

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Benedict Cumberbatch

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Paapa Essiedu

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Mel Gibson

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Adrian Lester

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Laurence Olivier

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Christopher Plummer

    Votes: 4 26.7%

  • Toby Stephens

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
TheGirlCanSkate said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iDds31CdNA Andrew Scott. hands down. I loved benedicts, but Andrew.....he is mad, mad, mad as a hatter.
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I hadn't found it and was limited to ten poll choices, but I wouldn't have included it purely because it is truncated.

I have to say, though, that his version feels more like Moriarty doing Hamlet than it feels like Hamlet. :shuffle:

Interestingly, Scott takes very nearly as long to get through what he does say as Ben Crystal does to get through the entire speech, including "Soft you now, the fair Ophelia?" Indeed Crystal takes fifty seconds to say what Scott says in 1:53. Apparently, using Original Pronunciation, as Crystal does, speeds up the time it takes to say the lines, but there are a lot of other reasons why Crystal's speech is so much shorter than the others.

A couple of others that I didn't include:

Paul Scofield -- not included because there's no video of the performance.
David Tennant -- I found this painful to watch, and not in a good way.
 
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What do you have against David Tennant, Vagabond? I liked him a lot. I found Stephens and Essiedu harder to watch.

Adrian Lester held me most and made it seem most fresh and personal from start to finish. Tennant next. Mel Gibson was much better than I expected. I saw Branagh do it in a theater some years ago, and disliked it intensely; I wasn't any more positively impressed with this film version.
 
Spun Silver said:
What do you have against David Tennant, Vagabond?
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I find his version bathetic. Plus, the meaning of the lines gets lost.
Spun Silver said:
Mel Gibson was much better than I expected.
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One can easily go into the Gibson version expecting it to be "Cor, Laertes! Freeze, or I'll blow your f****** brains out!" (which is what the Stephens version is the closest to) and end up being all :wideeyes: I first encountered a sound-only version of it in an exhibition at the British Library along with several other recordings, including some that are in my poll. I liked it a lot because of the quality of his voice. Watching the film clip, I like it even more, particularly because of how he puts so much feeling into his eyes. I didn't vote for it, though.

I am somehow able to watch Gibson's good performances and not be repulsed by what I know about his life off-screen. I'm not sure that I would feel that way about Kevin Spacey, for example.
 
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vireo said:
Can't understand why this wasn't included in the poll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JQ8yF04y9o
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Jot the Dot Dot said:
Laurence Harvey, in The Magic Christian ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXAj_-LAK4
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Aussie Willy said:
When I read the thread title I automatically thought of this one (hint hint - complete with camp dancing and showgirls)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpYQJkBQp0
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Spun Silver said:
I guess no truncation means we can't include Jack Benny. Too bad! But I don't think he ever makes it through the first line. :D
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:wall:

Everyone's a comedian, eh? :rolleyes:

So too are Charlie Chaplin and Amy Walker.:sneaky:
 
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My three favourites are Adrian Lester, Christopher Plummer and Benedict Cumberbatch.
 
I'm going to come back tomorrow and watch the other videos, I just need to go to bed soon because I work early. I just figured I would drop this in here because it was the video that had me considering Hamlet again as being forced to read it in school made me despise it. Hamlet as a vlogger
 
Toby or not Toby? :unsure:

It looks right now like some things are not Toby. :shuffle:

I particularly like Stephens' delivery of "to sleep,/No more...." and "after death." :fan:
 
Ben Crystal for me. His Hamlet feels deeply but thinks before he speaks. And he's one of the few in the poll who doesn't slip into reciting the script at any point in the speech.
 
Vagabond said:
Ben Crystal for me. His Hamlet feels deeply but thinks before he speaks. And he's one of the few in the poll who doesn't slip into reciting the script at any point in the speech.
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Of those mentioned above but not in the poll, I would vote for Amy Walker. Ironic pentameter?
 
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