The last Hamlet

To be or not to be

What if we were to stage the last Hamlet — literally — after which Shakespeare’s play, a classic among classics, would never be performed again, making way for new stories for new times?

For Ben Duke, the British director and choreographer, Hamlet bears a heavy responsibility for the ills of our times: he is depressed, violent and guilty of procrastination. Having learnt that his play has been cancelled, he takes to the stage one last time. He has prepared new arguments with which he hopes to persuade us to grant him a reprieve. Ben Duke uses the character created by the English playwright as a starting point for a sarcastic exploration of existence, revenge and the stories from which we never seem able to escape.

Ben Duke, a leading figure in the English theatre world, has created around a dozen productions with his company Lost Dog, three of which have received awards: Ruination: The True Story of Medea (2022); Paradise Lost [lies unopened beside me] (2015) and It Needs Horses (2011). This is the first time the artist and his company will perform in Belgium, with this production specially created for the IN programme of the 2026 Festival d’Avignon.