Cumberbatch, who made his debut in the play earlier this month, asked fans at the stage door to put technology to “good use” and spread his message through social media, warning that future offenders would be evicted from the show.
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The modern dress production, directed by Lyndsey Turner, has been described as the fastest-selling play in British history but has received criticism from the start for attention-grabbing stunts.
“But – and ay, here’s the rub – he is, in truth, a blazing, five-star Hamlet trapped in a middling, three-star show”. “The evening’s energies are dissipated by the confining Elsinore of designer Es Devlin, and director Lyndsey Turner’s tendency to hack the text”.
Whatsonstage.com gave the production four stars and the website’s critic Michael Coveney said Cumberbatch delivered the great soliloquies “superbly, urgently, intelligently and full of concentration, right to the top of the Barbican”.
Michael Billington in the Guardian gave the show two stars, and blasted the distracting staging of the play.
Benedict Cumberbatch performs as Hamlet at the Barbican in London. Denmark, Hamlet tells us, is a prison. But after all the excitement, Ventham’s glowing praise was in the minority. Does small-screen beau Benedict bring home the Dane’s bacon? Yes.
The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish praised Cumberbatch for his take on the role, but found the rest of the production unable to meet his level.
Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail said that this was “a fine Hamlet in a patchy, occasionally puerile, production”.
The Stage said Oscar-nominated Benedict brought a “close-up, brooding intensity” to Hamlet that hovers between film and TV and theatre.
The critics may have had mixed reviews of the new production of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, but the actor’s mother gave no doubt that she was a fan of her son’s performance, saying her son was “a bloody good Hamlet”.
Ventham said she and Cumberbatch’s father, Timothy Carlton, both also actors, were “extraordinarily proud”.
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The couple were joined by former Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens and his wife Susie Hariet as well as his one-time co-star Allen Leech. Benedict’s Sherlock star Mark Gatiss, meanwhile, said the star had been “magnificent”.
