All posts tagged: Hamlet

Riz Ahmed explains reinterpretation of ‘To be or not to be’ in modern Hamlet retelling

Riz Ahmed explains reinterpretation of ‘To be or not to be’ in modern Hamlet retelling

Published by Daniella Wilson

A few years after they collaborated on Oscar-winning short film The Long Goodbye back in 2020, Riz Ahmed and director Aneil Karia have teamed up for another new project – and this time they’ve taken on one of the most revered texts in the history of the English language. The pair’s new version of Hamlet – which arrives in UK cinemas today – is an abridged adaptation of the tragic masterpiece, with screenwriter Michael Lesslie having kept the Shakespearian verse mostly in tact. Set in modern day London and filtered through a British Asian lens, it’s a striking new take on the timeless source material that intends to make the play more accessible to a wider audience, including those who might previously have felt Shakespeare wasn’t for them. There are a number of ways in which Karia staged the action to make it feel fresh and exciting, and one key scene is the film’s iteration of the iconic ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy – which Ahmed’s Hamlet delivers while recklessly driving a car …

Riz Ahmed hopes his modern-day ‘visceral’ Hamlet will be shown in schools | Ents & Arts News

Riz Ahmed hopes his modern-day ‘visceral’ Hamlet will be shown in schools | Ents & Arts News

Published by Daniella Wilson

“He’s powerless, he’s being gaslit… a lot of people feel that way” – Riz Ahmed on why his “fresh” adaptation of Hamlet speaks to our “unfair” times. For Ahmed, “a musical chairs of… studio execs leaving” meant it’s taken 13 years to bring his modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the screen. While the wait has clearly been frustrating for the Oscar-winning actor, he says he’s come to realise “this is the time for this story”. “Hamlet is feeling the way a lot of us are, you know, he’s feeling the world’s an unfair place,” he tells Sky News. “He’s powerless about it. He’s being gaslit about it. He’s complicit in it… and a lot of people feel that way.” Image: Riz Ahmed says he was ‘obsessed’ with Hamlet as a child. Pic: AP Ahmed says he became “obsessed” with the story as a teenager. “I had an amazing English teacher who gave me the play to look at because he saw that I was feeling out of place.” Filmed as an action thriller reimagined in modern …

‘Atomic People,’ ‘Harvest,’ ‘Grand Theft Hamlet’

‘Atomic People,’ ‘Harvest,’ ‘Grand Theft Hamlet’

Published by Daniella Wilson

The 2025 BAFTA Breakthrough cohort of rising U.K. talent across film, TV, and gaming, supported by Netflix, has been unveiled, and it represents creatives from across such craft areas as producing, writing, directing, editing, acting, and more. Among the 20 “must-watch” creatives highlighted in the latest year of the BAFTA Breakthrough initiative are Grand Theft Hamlet writer-director Pinny Grylls, whose feature documentary focuses on two out-of- work actors attempting to mount a production of Hamlet inside the world of Grand Theft Auto that was shot in game, Mr Loverman series writer and associate producer Nathaniel Price, Scottish Highlands period drama Harvest producer Marie-Elena Dyche, and Megumi “Meg” Inman (Black Box Diaries), the co-director and producer of Atomic People, which gives voice to survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. THR caught up with them to discuss their hopes for the BAFTA Breakthrough experience, the works that have gotten them into it, and future plans. Marie-Elena Dyche Having worked as a producer on such successes as Blue Jean, How to Have Sex, and Harvest, starring Caleb …