The Motive and the Cue

Text of the day: “Very well, then, why not contemporary clothing and drawing-room sets? Because it’s even more depressing really, and I’ve seen so much of it. Claudius drinks a dreary martini, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter with frightfully tight — umbrellas — and Laertes offers Ophelia a Lucky Strike from a gold cigarette case and they both puff away while Polonius talks of the French…” (Gielgud in Jack Thorne’s The Motive and the Cue)

1960s design directing Hamlet Jack Thorne John Gielgud modern dress National Theatre Noel Coward Theatre Richard Burton Shakespeare Shakespeare Our Contemporary The Motive and the Cue theatre history West End