Shakespeare’s Globe is to put on a performance of Hamlet at The Jungle camp in Calais.
The touring production of the Bard’s timeless tragedy will play to an audience of displaced men and women, the London-based theatre company said.
The show on Wednesday is part of the Globe to Globe world tour, which has also seen performances at refugee camps in Jordan, Djibouti and Cameroon.
Globe actors perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet during a photo call (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
It is being staged with the Good Chance theatre company, which is based at the camp.
Dominic Dromgoole, the Globe’s artistic director, said: “This performance will be yet another wonderful example of this groundbreaking tour’s ability to reach displaced people across the world.
“It’s a privilege that our Hamlet company have been able to perform in the Calais Jungle and our thanks go to Good Chance for enabling this.”
A scene from Hamlet during a photo call (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
Some 6,000 people are living in unsanitary and dangerous conditions in the camp on France’s north coast as European nations struggle to deal with the migrant crisis.
Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, the artistic directors of Good Chance, said: “As a production which has travelled to audiences all over the world, it is fitting that it visits the camp here in Calais, where the fault lines of over 20 different nations meet.”
The Jungle show will be followed by a performance for Libyan migrants in Malta on Monday.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet remains one of his most popular plays, with movie adaptations starring the likes of Laurence Olivier, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson in the title role.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here