There's a major structural difference at this point in Gregory Doran's version of the play. The Fishmonger scene now occurs after ...

As Polonia speaks to the Royals, Hamlet and Horatio walk in on them (as well as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern). Instead of an intimate conv...

This sequence appears before Polonius' talk with the Royals, and so gives it a different spin. In this version of the play, Polonius che...

In Kline's version, Polonius skulks around pillars, in and out of sight like a clownish spy. He smiles a lot, sometimes trying to lull H...

At the end of the previous sequence, mad Hamlet walks into the lobby, ripping pages out of his books and throwing them away, but the fishmon...

Jacobi's Hamlet walks in on Polonius and the Royals, reading and feigning madness. This is very different staging from the usual scurryi...

Olivier's Hamlet is far less loony, his madness manifesting itself as deep depression, or else through his words. In this sequence, he i...

Branagh makes plain that Hamlet is putting "an antic disposition" on in this scene. When he is first seen reading, he keeps Poloni...

More than any other in the play, this is the sequence that led to this project. It's a fun scene in which Hamlet plays the madman for Po...

Johnny Hallyday's Hamlet is very much about Hamlet's point of view, and while we may hear the peasantry moan in the choir, there rea...

The original ...in which Polonius actually IS brief. The original Classics Illustrated is so fixated on plot that it tries to often distill ...

The original We don't learn much about Rosencrantz & Guildenstern in the original Classics Illustrated upon meeting them, only that ...

From the very start, this Gertrude finds this Polonius tedious, rolling her eyes and his formulations. Claudius shares a secret smile with h...

Polonia's brevity speech is a seduction scene. As she makes her case, lacing her speech with false concern and furtive smiles, the triba...

From Act II onwards, Hamlet 2000 makes some big structural changes to the play. Scenes are rarely in the order we're used to. In this ca...

Having omitted the first part of the scene, Act II here begins with Polonius' address to the King and Queen. It seems artificially stage...

Despite the cuts the part suffered, I must admit Ian Holm's performance is a lot of fun. He catches the royal couple in an open yard and...

Another strong performance from Eric Porter as Polonius. His speech starts out practiced, with formulas that shows him to be just as much a ...

The scene starts on the King and Queen looking into each other's eyes, hiding the figure of Polonius, showing how focused they are on ea...

As Polonius starts on his "brief" speech, the King and Queen are signing papers (presumably the Norwegian treaty), which is an int...