SPACE HAMLET

Cockpit Theatre

★★★★★

“very funny and silly, yet it is emotionally captivating”

The Danish court settled on yet another new planet, but the family dramas migrated with them. King Ham (Shem Jacobs) has been murdered. His brother Claudius has taken his widow and the throne. With a family like this, who wouldn’t have an identity crisis?

This is space opera in the literal sense. Dan Sturman’s glam rock score, with a strong nod to Bowie, carries the story, and every song moves the plot forward. Sturman and R.C. Staab share the lyrics and the book, keeping Shakespeare’s structure and changing almost everything else. Polonius is a puppet. Guildenstern is a robot. The script is heavy with Viking references. The score is heavy with musical theatre history. For example, when Hamlet travels back to the old planet, the cheerful, scruffy ensemble are reminiscent of the innkeeper Thénardier and his customers in Les Misérables: too busy scraping a living to be interested in the tragedy playing out among their rulers.

The eight actor-musicians play, sing and puppeteer a dizzying array of parts. They are all very talented. Nic Gordon plays Hamlet, opposite Lucas Fox as Claudius and Lauren Bryant as Gertrude, with Elle Overvoorde as Laertes, Lewis Aves as Fortinbras and Amy Beven as Horatio and others. Ruby Bardwell-Dix’s Ophelia is no drifting flower girl: this one ends up impaling Gertrude.

The creative team blend acting, puppetry and multi-media into a brilliant, seamless whole. The charming, loopy and technically skilful puppetry is directed by April Nash (who also directs the show) and Lottie Johnson. Nash and Carole Beatty’s choreography is sparse but effective. Fight direction by Alex Green is super: axe versus sword in complicated duels that are central to the story. Music direction by Christopher Davidson and orchestrations by Acer Smith work excellently. The evening is packed full of music with clever lyrics enunciated clearly to bring the audience along for the crazy ride. Lighting and sound by Matt Cross make the whole shebang cohesive. Costumes by Jo Myers and Dan Smith are inventive, playful and one surprise after another. Sturman has a list of credits that requires its own postcode, if not an entirely new planet. As well as writing and composing the show, he co-produced. He designed and built the set, which is a cut above the sets used in most independent theatre productions. He made puppets and provided graphic designs. What an inventive mind!

There is real promise here, and it will almost certainly hit the West End at some stage. Hamlet junkies will be delighted by each nuanced reference. Newbies may be inspired to dip their toes in the original.

Space Hamlet is very funny and silly, yet it is emotionally captivating. By the end, the audience is strangely moved. This is Hamlet for the ADHD generation. Shakespeare would have loved it.

SPACE HAMLET

Cockpit Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd October 2026

by Elizabeth Botsford

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

SPACE HAMLET

★★★

“a muscular play with strong storytelling and an important message”

From the history of horror and trauma suffered by European Jews through the Second World War comes a piece that many of us know little about.

In May 1941 Germany bombed, invaded and then occupied Crete. In Long After the Labyrinth we look at the impact on the island’s Romaniote Jews, who settled there some 2,300 years ago and who at the time of the occupation numbered in the hundreds.

Writer Jonathan D’Young and director Ramon Ayres have taken this start point to create a fictional narrative following the fortunes, before, during and after the war, of a young Jewish girl, Rena. She is hidden when her people are rounded up, escaping deportation but losing her entire birth family when they are shipped away by boat.

This is a complex and poignant piece, interweaving the ancient history of Crete and the Labyrinth with Rena’s lived experience of psychological trauma. The Minotaur of the ancient myths becomes a metaphor for the horror and rage that never entirely leaves her.

An impressive list of collaborators, including The Ancient Peace Studies Network and NMT Automatics, has helped bring Rena’s story to life. On what I assume was a minimal budget, the team make highly creative use of lighting, music, projections and screens. This last takes the form of an unmissable curtain that almost deserves to be cited as a cast member, helping us shift time and place, and enter, at points, the labyrinth itself.

Genevieve Dunne plays Rena in a standout performance, growing from early childhood to old woman. Her versatility and emotional range hold everything together. This matters because, although she is supported by a highly able cast (Leonie Hill, Harry Lukakis and Noah Young) who take on the multiple parts, the changes of roles can hover on the edge of confusion. Mostly sufficient distinction in their performances avoids the trap.

There is no avoiding the fact that this drama has an agenda: to explore trauma and the difficulty of achieving personal peace long after external peace has been declared. It uses an interesting mix of ancient and modern to do so. The result is some over-writing and creative excess. The narrative is a little too long for comfort and relies on audience familiarity with history.

That said, it is a muscular play with strong storytelling and an important message about peacebuilding, worth seeing for Dunne’s performance and the inventiveness of the creative team.

Tag Archives: theatrereviews

SPACE HAMLET

★★★★★

Cockpit Theatre

SPACE HAMLET

Cockpit Theatre

★★★★★

“very funny and silly, yet it is emotionally captivating”