There in Spirit:‘Hamnet’ and Hamlet’s Ghost

Peter Jukes argues that the historical facts around the impact that the death of his son had on Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy are irrelevant. ‘Hamnet’ honours the spirit of ‘Hamlet’ in other ways

All art is subjective, so you really shouldn’t listen to me when it comes to anything about Shakespeare. I’m such a geek that I’ve always vowed that, if I could go back to any moment in time for a day, it would be to the opening night of Hamlet at the Globe around 1600.

That’s because it would satisfy three obsessions at once. What was Elizabethan London really like? How did they cut the play to “two hours’ traffic of our stage” (the more authorial Second Quarto text runs well over three)? And did Shakespeare really play the ghost of Hamlet’s father as Nicholas Rowe – his first biographer – suggested a hundred years later?

However, you don’t need to be well-versed in Shakespeare or live (as I do) within a stone’s throw of the Globe to appreciate Hamnet.