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The Financial Times

Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times, 16th August 2002

The Al-Hamlet Summit (Pleasance Dome, venue 23) is a fascinating piece by London and Kuwait-based writer/director Sulayman Al Bassam. Shakespeare's story is updated into contemporary Middle Eastern political rhetoric, set in an unnamed Arab state and staged as if in a negotiation chamber, complete with name plates, microphones and mini-video cameras on the desks of the six main characters. It works remarkably well until Hamlet's return from exile in England.

At this point, the analogies break down, and too many plot strands - generational conflict, westernised secularism and venality versus Islamic fundamentalism, commercial and political manipulation by external forces, the Israeli dimension - crowd in to be tied up satisfactorily. But it remains one of the most intriguing and intelligent shows I have seen this year. It will shortly visit Cairo.

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