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Regeneration Theatre

The Play’s The Thing: A One Person Hamlet

Fri 16 May 2025

Edited and directed by Fiona Laird for a single performer across 90 minutes, the play takes on a startling new intensity.

We see Hamlet’s inner demons as never before. The prince, powerless against a tide of selfishness and injustice, loses his grip on reality. But if he really is mad, then is this story a figment of his broken imagination, and the other characters merely voices in his head? Shakespeare’s language sings out – all the timeless phrases we know so well given a new meaning seen through the prism of one soul.

As Hamlet himself says, ‘The Play’s The Thing’.

This Hamlet started life when Fiona saw Mark playing two parts simultaneously in 2021’s Take Off Your Cornflakes at The White Bear Theatre, London and was subsequently developed at the National Theatre Studios.

‘I cannot remember receiving Hamlet with more open ears and more abandon, such is Mark’s absolute commitment to and mastery of this timeless classic.’ Rufus Norris ex Artistic Director Royal National Theatre

Director Fiona Laird. Actor Mark Lockyer. Lighting Design Tim Mitchell. Stage Design Anthony Lamble.