Hamlet, Part 2 (Ep. 126)

Adapt or Perish

In Episode 126 of Adapt or Perish, we're back for a second discussion about William Shakespeare's Hamlet! This time we're focusing on a selection of what can best be described as the many Hamlet "derivatives" that have been brought to the stage and screen.

In this episode, we discuss:

• To Be or Not to Be (the 1942 theatrical movie), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, written by Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer, and starring Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, and Sig Ruman
• The Bad Sleep Well (the 1960 theatrical movie), directed by Akira Kurosawa, written by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijirō Hisaita, Ryūzō Kikushima, and Shinobu Hashimoto, and starring Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura
• To Be or Not to Be (the 1983 theatrical movie), directed by Alan Johnson, written by Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, and starring Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, and Tim Matheson
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (the 1966 play and the 1990 theatrical movie), both written by Tom Stoppard, who also directed the movie, which starred Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss
• The Lion King (the 1994 movie), directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton, and starring Matthew Broderick, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane, and Ernie Sabella
• In the Bleak Midwinter (or A Midwinter's Tale) (the 1995 theatrical movie), written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, and starring Michael Maloney, Richard Briers, Joan Collins, Nicholas Farrell, Celia Imrie, and Julia Sawalha
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 Ep. 194: Hamlet (the 1961 TV movie and the 1999 TV episode), directed by Michael J. Nelson, and starring Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy (while this Hamlet was written and directed by Franz Peter Wirth and starred Maximilian Schell)
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (the 1987 play and the 2000 filmed stage performance), written by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield) and starring Long, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor
• Slings & Arrows (the first season of the 2003–2006 TV series), created by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney, directed by Peter Wellington, and starring Paul Gross, Stephen Ouimette, Martha Burns, McKinney, Coyne, and Rachel McAdams
• Hamlet 2 (the 2008 theatrical movie), directed by Andrew Fleming, written by Fleming and Pam Brady, and starring Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler, and Elisabeth Shue
• The Lion King (the 2019 theatrical movie), directed by Jon Favreau, written by Jeff Nathanson, and starring Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, James Earl Jones, Beyoncé, Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen, and John Oliver
• Ophelia (the 2019 theatrical movie), directed by Claire McCarthy, written by Semi Chellas, and starring Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, Tom Felton, and George MacKay
• The Northman (the 2022 theatrical movie), directed by Robert Eggers, written by Eggers and Sjón, and starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, and Ethan Hawke

Footnotes:

• The Spanish Tragedy
• Saxo Grammaticus and the legend of Amleth
• Sir John Everett Millais' "Ophelia"
• Alan Johnson's Solarbabies as covered in Ep. 135 of How Did This Get Made?
• Due South and Passchendaele

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