Waiting for Hamlet

Parliament of Fools?

Waiting for Hamlet

by David Visick

Take Note Theatre and Smokescreen Productions at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick until 4^th April

Review by Gill Martin

We, the audience at the Tabard Theatre, are directly in the line of the fire. In the firing squad are two actors with laser focus, bullseye accuracy and the delivery of a manic machine gun. Their ammo is words, just words, but what wordplay, thanks to a brilliant script by David Visick. If this ammunition was in the armoury of any warring power no drone would stand a chance of hitting its target.

And apart from their unwavering aim the two actors, Tim Marriott as the Old King Hamlet, and Nicholas Collett as the Fool, have only as back up a pair of hats. Yes, hats! One a bejewelled golden crown for King Hamlet, or rather his ghost as (plot spoiler) he’s but a ghost since his murder most foul by his brother who, incidently, is bedding the Queen. And a colourful cap’n’bells for the Fool, who is much wiser than the foolish King.

There is no set to speak of, just a black backdrop and a couple of boxes to double as coffin and seat.

Visick’s script is wonderfully Shakespearean, but you don’t need to be a scholar of the Bard to follow this deliciously funny play. Nor a Beckett buff to appreciate the nod to Waiting for Godot. But if you’re a Monty Python fan you’ll lap up the giddy nonsense.

Waiting for Hamlet romps along at breakneck speed for a full seventy minutes that end far too soon for the audience, left wanting more laughter. But as this little gem of a 96-seater theatre is above the popular Tabard pub there’s plenty of scope for post-performance chatter about
about this comedy that pays homage to the Bard’s masterpiece tragedy.

This prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet imagines the Old King arriving in the waiting area to
the afterlife where he encounters his old court jester, Yorick. His Majesty is not amused by his plight: poisoned by his brother Claudius, his Queen Gertrude unfaithful, he even harbours doubts about the parentage of his son. His wife is widowed, wooed and wed in weeks following his murder so who knows?

Stranded in a timeless limbo between Heaven (an egalitarian place, according to the brochure) and Hell (all fire and brimstone) he is determined to regain his old life and exact revenge. ‘Just because I’m dead do I have to take this lying down?’ he rails.

Now only Yorick can stop dead King Hamlet destroying everything and everybody
he loved. A battle of wits takes place between two fools, but who is the fool? Is it the one whose signature act is a well-timed jump, whistle and fart to amuse the King.

In their mini-democracy of two they vote as to who should rule. ‘You can’t put a clown in charge,’ argues the King. At a time when the world teeters between war and peace this brings hollow laughter from the audience.

It takes a very talented trio of playwright and actors to fashion a comedy from a Shakespearean tragedy. They succeed in spades to switch the question of “To Be or Not To Be?” to “How Not To Be?”. As a thirty-minute version, the play won the International Kenneth Brannagh New Drama Writing Award in 2018, and made its debut at the Windsor Fringe. Then, with Marriott and Colletteon board, it toured the UK and enjoyed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

They explore love, loss, legacy and letting go. Plus the politics of democracy versus monarchy. Yorick sums up his boss’s reign. ‘You were a really bad king. You were shit.’

If only there were more fools to call out their leaders, some of us pondered over our pints.

Gill Martin, March 2026

Photography by Matt Hunter