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 …