Hamlet
Oxford Playhouse, 1961
Strand Theatre, London, 1961
Role: Hamlet

Jeremy spoke about his role in Hamlet during a July 1967 Homes and Gardens magazine interview:

I think I got away with it though the only thing I had on my side was youth. I had an enormous sense of identity with Hamlet, though I never understood fully a scene like the Ghost scene, which is why I would dearly like to play the part again. Of course, that's the frustrating thing about these marvelous Shakespearian parts which you must play in your twenties and early thirties, though you're not really fitted to act them properly until you're in your fifties. Just imagine what understanding and warmth Peggy Ashcroft could bring to Juliet, if she was to play her now.

Despite his youth, Jeremy brought some considerable depth of experience to the role. In one his last interviews -- for a TV documentary called Playing the Dane -- Jeremy spoke about his performance:

I couldn't believe the circumstances. I thought they were monstrous. I was very rough on my mother [in the play] ... I was angry at that time. My mother had been killed savagely in a car accident in 1959. And I was very angry about that because my son when she was killed was only 3 months old. There was anger ... in me and I think that came through. I felt cheated; I felt my mother was cheated. The rage of that I think came through. ...

Jeremy's version of Hamlet was directed on an almost-bare stage by Frank Hauser. Co-starring were Helen Cherry, Robert Eddison, Joseph O'Connor.

Reviews of the Oxford and London performances are available at The Brettish Empire. A sample:

• As to acting, Jeremy Brett as Hamlet was alone remarkable. ... He was manifestly a prince among players.

• Here was a Hamlet youthful, princely, embittered, passionate in his vengeance-seeking ... a man who in voice and mien suggested a royal personage.

• Mr. Brett's speaking of the language had a consistently fine and expressive musicality.

In the July 1967 Homes and Gardens magazine interview, Jeremy related this swordplay mishap that occurred during one performance:

I was supposed to disarm Laertes by flicking his sword nearly out of his hand. This was always most effective until one night when it landed neatly on the lap of a young lady sitting in the front row of the stalls. I knelt down and peered over the footlights and she very kindly passed the sword over to me, which I needed rather badly in order to stab Laertes. You might have thought the audience would have rocked with laughter, but they didn't, nor did we lose any of the atmosphere that the play needs for a successful ending.

Wikipedia page about Hamlet // Full text and analysis